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The Sidelines > Opinions

Knoll sermon free speech

Letter to the Editor

By Zach Barnes

Senior, College of Education and Behavioral Sciences

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Published: Wednesday, October 28, 2009

Updated: Wednesday, October 28, 2009

To the Editor:

After the events Tuesday on the Knoll, there has been ongoing debate on Facebook. Many are upset with Dr. Gene Fitch for allowing these preachers to come onto campus. What happened to freedom of speech? We can’t just let the people we agree with come to this campus. We must allow everyone. The preachers were allowed to stay if they followed the rules at hand. They did for hours until the incident happened. I hope that MTSU keeps bringing people on campus to share their opinion, it is what freedom of speech is about. So, Dr. Fitch, thank you for keeping the right of freedom on speech alive on this campus.

Zach Barnes
Senior, College of Education  and Behaviorial Sciences

Comments

6 comments
Innocent bystander
Sat Oct 31 2009 18:47
Free exercise of their religious beliefs, and their free speech is Constitutionally protected, for even “loud and boisterous...religious harangues]” are constitutionally protected when they occur in a traditional public forum, Edwards v. South Carolina, 372 U.S. 229, 233 (1963). We would have you note that “preaching the Gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ” is Constitutionally protected under the First Amendment to the United States Constitution, Furr v. Town of Swansea, 594 F.Supp. 1543, 1546 (D.S.C. 1984)

The “fact that society may find speech offensive is not a sufficient reason for suppressing it. Indeed, if it is the speaker’s opinion that gives offense, that consequence is a reason for according it constitutional protection”, Simon & Shuster, Inc. v. Members of New York State Crime Victims Bd, 502 U.S. 105 (1991). See also, NAACP v. Claiborne Hardware Co., 458 U.S. 886, 928 (1982); New York Times Co. v. Sullivan, 376 U.S. 254, 270 (1964).

The size of the community, or its level of tolerance, does not negate the responsibility of government to protect the Constitutional Rights of our members. Consequently, if “citizens must tolerate insulting, and even outrageous speech in order to provide ‘adequate breathing space’ to the freedoms protected by the “First Amendment”, Hustler Magazine, Inc. v. Falwell, 485 U.S. 46, 56 (1988), and though “the speech in question may have an adverse emotional impact on the audience” (ibid. @ 55), it has been repeatedly mandated by the highest court of the country that “police must permit the speech and control the crowd; there is no heckler’s veto” Hedges v. Wauconda Community Unit School District No. 118, et al., 9F.3d 1295, 1299-1300 (7th Cir. 1993).

These are constitutional legal citations of previous Supreme Court rulings. These matters that are so easily bantered about on this forum with little or no factual research involved in the student's statements.
It seems not many of the students understand the civic duty that the University and all citizens of these United States are required to allow for these freedoms whether they are liked or not. The University and Mr. Fitch should be commended for being lawful in allowing all points of view to be aired on the knoll even if we don't like them.

It also seemed to me that not many students were willing to air their disputes with these 'preachers' in a civil manner in order to destroy their arguments using logic and reason. What I saw was lots of emotional inconsistencies, rantings, and poorly reasoned statements which did nothing to hamper the 'preachers' message but bolstered their positions.

Let us engage our minds and defeat these types of arguments with the truth as we see it.

Zack Barnes
Thu Oct 29 2009 15:44
I am also confused about separation of church and state. So, Brandon, are you against the people coming out here and passing out bibles? Are you against the group that comes out with their children and pass out information. Brandon, why are you wanting to censor these people. What if someone came here to talk in favor of the gender identity bill, and i didnt like it? What if I thought the things that person said were volatile like these preachers. You cant accept the 1st amendment when you like what they say, then go against it when it harms you.
Your name
Thu Oct 29 2009 13:47
As much as i would like to agree with you Mr. Thomas, i have to disagree. Although what they were saying may have been uncomfortable, and maybe alot of it was pure vitriol, they had a right to say it as long as they followed the rules. I'm not quite clear on what you mean by MTSU disrupting the notion of "separation of church and state" by allowing a religious group to come onto a state campus. The administration did not endorse the group, it only granted a permit, therefore there is no violation, check your constitution sir. If anything, what you should be arguing is whether or not the assembly was PEACEFUL, which it was until the crowd gathered and the particular incident occurred, and what happened past that is another topic. But, what you are claiming as a solution to the problem is nothing more than censorship, by having non-students go through a student organization in order to push their message. As long as they have a permit, and it is deemed that there is no threat to public safety, they can speak. Even verbal hate speech is protected by the first amendment.
Brandon Thomas
Thu Oct 29 2009 01:50
Also, if these people are a church that is tax exempt I would like to see that change. If they want to be political, fine, but they shouldn't be getting tax breaks for it. You can't be a pimp and a prostitute too.
Student
Thu Oct 29 2009 01:50
COMPLETELY AGREE!!!!!
Brandon Thomas
Thu Oct 29 2009 01:40
Zach, please don't give me a parking ticket for saying this, but I have to disagree with you. Sure one can make an argument for this being a freedom of speech issue, and one can say that the supreme court has expanded the definition of what free speech is, but let's not forget what the intent of free speech was all about. To criticize the government, for the press and the people to openly voice their concerns. As much as we like to ignore it there are restrictions on free speech, like slander or yelling fire in a movie theater. There is also the issue, of whether or not what MTSU did disrupted the notion of separation between church and state. In some states these people would have not been allowed to free speech on public campuses, simply because of the separation between church and state and in some countries their act would have been seen as hate speech. I would like to see the rules change to only allow non-students who want their redress heard to have to go through a student organization or for that student organization to sponsor non-students, because apparently our administration didn't take the time to check out the plethora of youtube video's where these people were only antagonizing bystanders with their thinly veiled hate speech.






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