NJ Federal Court Says Comedian's Jewish Mother-in-Law Jokes Protected Free Speech
This is no joke! A stand-up comedian sued by her husband's family for making Jewish mother-in-law jokes gets to enjoy the punchline after a federal judge threw the case out of court. The comedian's descriptions of her in-laws, though laced with implications of racism, were merely "colorful, figurative rhetoric," U.S. District Judge Mary Cooper said in dismissing the suit, Edelman v. Croonquist , 09-cv-1938. Sunda Croonquist, whose comedy routine for years has been to describe her life as a half-black, half-Swedish woman who looks Puerto Rican and marries into a Jewish family, was sued two years ago after her mother-in-law, sister-in-law and brother-in-law claimed her jokes were subjecting them up to public ridicule. On her website, Croonquist published video clips of her routines about her in-laws and also made online postings to her blog and on MySpace. In one clip called "Jewish Friends"Croonquist says the voice of her sister-in-law She