I love boobies, too, just not that much

Let me preface this by saying I am a committed believer in the First Amendment. After all, it's allowed me to make a living and pay the bills for more than three decades. Newspapering is the only job I've ever had as an adult.

However, I have to admit I am sometimes perplexed at the lengths people will go to argue their fights to free speech.

Please indulge me. I went to a Catholic elementary school and spent eight years under the firm tutelage of the good Sisters Servants of the Immaculate Heart of Mary. Freedom of speech was pretty much a rumor. You did as the nuns said - and quickly. Unless, of course, you enjoyed having your ear grabbed or your knuckles rapped with a brass ruler.

This comes to mind after yesterday's ruling by the U.S. Supreme Court that they would not hear an appeal from the Easton School District on a lower court ruling that ordered them to allow students to don bracelets proclaiming, "I Love (actually the heart sign that signifies it) Boobies."

I am not making this up. The highest court in the land was being asked to rule on the free speech merits of the rights of students to proclaim their love of "boobies."

For some reason, I don't think Antonin Scalia was smiling at this development.

I understand what was behind this fracas. The bracelets and T-shirts were part of a breast-cancer awareness and fundraising drive. It is an admirable mission.

That does not mean I think they should be adorned for school.

Look, I love boobies as much as the next guy. And I have made a pretty good living for years by using just such double entendres in headlines.

But I still don't think having kids proclaiming this kind of sentiment in schools is a good idea.

Ever since I heard about the high court ruling yesterday, I could not stop thinking what the reaction of the nuns would have been if I had deigned to show up at school with a bracelet that declared 'I Love Boobies.' I'll let you fill in the blank. The nuns didn't believe in a Supreme Court. They believed in a Supreme being, usually none greater than Mother Superior.

Then again, maybe I'm just old. Or a complete boob. These days too often they're pretty much the same thing.