6:30 p.m.

• Wait a second, so a government school does nothing when several kids make fun of a Mormon student’s religion, but when she responds to them by saying, “that’s so gay” she's the one who gets in trouble?

When a few classmates razzed Rebekah Rice about her Mormon upbringing with questions such as, "Do you have 10 moms?" she shot back: "That's so gay."

 

Those three words landed the high school freshman in the principal's office and resulted in a lawsuit that raises this question: When do playground insults used every day all over America cross the line into hate speech that must be stamped out?

 

After Rice got a warning and a notation in her file, her parents sued, claiming officials at Santa Rosa's Maria Carillo High violated their daughter's First Amendment rights when they disciplined her for uttering a phrase "which enjoys widespread currency in youth culture," according to court documents.

 

Testifying last week about the 2002 incident, Rice, now 18, said that when she uttered those words, she was not referring to anyone's sexual orientation. She said the phrase meant: "That's so stupid, that's so silly, that's so dumb."

Good God, I can’t imagine what would have happened to me and some of the shit I used to say. And this reason…

But school officials say they took a strict stand against the putdown after two boys were paid to beat up a gay student the year before.

…doesn’t cut it. Sorry, but what the government school did was … well, gay. I miss the good ol' days when you could play "smear the queer," and it wouldn't be considered a hate crime.

• Speaking of gay, I saw PTI had the gay ex-NBA baler. Well, he probably still is a baller, but not the way he did back during his playing days. Anyway, it was funny to hear that interview only to hear this story later on in the show.

Maddux is a master of strategically timed nose picking, sidling up to an unsuspecting rookie in the shower and urinating on the kid's leg, and inventing just the right nickname for a teammate with big ears, a prominent schnozz or some other pronounced physical qualities.

And many pro athletes are worried about teammates sporting boners in the shower room?