By now, the rumors surrounding the incident on the Keathley University Center Knoll between the street preachers and protesters have reached extreme levels.
Despite the hype and accusations and despite the bluster and rhetoric on Facebook, there are lessons to be learned from incidents like this.
Much of the online debate and comments at the scene were predicated on the preachers using “hate speech.” We use quotations because hate speech is a difficult thing to define, and an even more difficult thing to curtail.
In 1977, citizens in Skokie, Ill. were unable to prevent the National Socialist Party of America, from the American Nazis, from marching in a Jewish community, because doing so would infringe upon the group’s right to peaceably assemble.
The Supreme Court uses the most stringent language in defining what speech is not constitutionally protected.
To the Court, virtually the only thing that makes speech unprotected or legally hateful is the immediate danger of inciting violence.
Like it or not, it is technically legal to call someone a “faggot” or in public, as it is to print.
What is not OK is for that speech to turn into violence, regardless of how offensive it may be. It doesn’t matter who pushed whom, or who was offended; violence is never an acceptable escalation of speech.
Nor is it okay to curtail anyone’s right to free expression.
Knoll incident teaches free speech versus hate speech
Published: Wednesday, October 28, 2009
Updated: Wednesday, October 28, 2009
1 comments
Free Speech Lover
Right on brother, right on!!
