Imagine posting to Facebook a picture of Wile E. Coyote reading a book entitled How to Carry Kids Across the Border. Coyote, get it? Yuk, yuk.
Is it funny? Is it offensive? Is it inappropriate?
It all depends on your sense of humor, more or less, and the sense of humor of your followers, assuming any of them have one. Ultimately, you should be able to post whatever you want on your own Facebook page, provided it’s not illegal or immoral.
How about this FB post? “Scientology is not a church. It’s an evil scam.”
Granted, that’s not going to sit well with Scientologists, but the person posting such a comment is not likely to be one, or to have many friends who are. If he does, they can simply unfriend him or post a derogatory reply about his faith community.
Maybe a productive interchange would ensue, but probably not.
Here’s another FB post: “Robert Francis O'Rourke. #fakemexican”
Who can argue with that? It might make Beto feel bad, but his improbable political career got shattered a long time ago. He might want to go back to playing bass for the punk band Foss. Or was it Floss?
Some may think these posts were inappropriate, at best. Some may not. On this, we can agree to disagree.
What we can also agree on is that they are grossly inappropriate for a district court judge, such as the one who posted them: Patricia Baca Bennett of Tarrant County.
Patty BB has been disciplined. The State Commission on Judicial Conduct publicly reminded her of what she should have known already: that her snarky comments online do not befit a person in her position.
The fact that you can’t shoot your mouth off in public about anything you please is one of the drawbacks of being a judge. Still, if you want to be a judge, you have to accept that.
Judge Bennett has acknowledged that her posts were inappropriate for a judge and deactivated her Facebook page.