Hey ACLU! Is Banning Hate Speech A Slippery Slope Or Not?
Posted on May 17, 2006
I thought I remembered the ACLU saying, “Even speech that is cruel, distasteful and upsetting is protected by the First Amendment.” I swear they were preaching something along the lines of, “The best answer to this speech is not speech restrictions, but more speech.” I guess this philosphy only applies when disrupting American soldier funerals, and not towards other kinds of hate speech in which the ACLU disagrees with. Either that, or the Boulder ACLU didn’t get the memo.
Tuesday, the Boulder City Council will take up the matter of allocating public funding for a “hate hotline,” which would give residents an opportunity to report incidents in which Boulderites use tactless language.
“Our concern—and there are many—is that there is no confidentiality, no legal confidentiality,” explains Judd Golden, chairman of the Boulder American Civil Liberties Union, which has not yet taken an official position on the hate-line. “So it’s potentially chilling if people think they are providing this information in confidence and then that information were provided to the government or the government sought access to it. That would chill free speech.”
Jeff Goldstein nails it as usual.
Amazingly, what worries the ACLU is not so much that a hotline to report tactless language is being set up by the local government—and that such a hotline might by used to enforce what is beginning to take shape as a municipal speech code—but rather that the person reporting the “speech offense” doesn’t have confidentiality, meaning that the problem is, should any kind of legal consequence proceed from the misuse of speech, the ACLU is bothered by the accuser’s not receiving the equivalent of rape shield law protections.
So, the idea of politically correct thought police doesn’t bother the ACLU at all when the issue is one of their pet causes.
The article continues…
Golden says the agenda item on the hotline is “extensive” and a “real dilemma” for the ACLU. There are some very “broad standards” laid out in the resolution.
There is, for instance, the policy statement condemning the usual individual or collective acts of racism and bigotry. Great. But it also condemns those who attack “personal beliefs and values.”
“Well, for the ACLU, that goes over the line,” Golden says. “You can object to free speech just because someone is a Republican or a Democrat.”
So what is the dilema? If you are going to draw a line on what speech is free, and what speech should be condemned….where do you draw it? Is a psycho cult screaming “God hates fags”, and “Thank God For Dead Soilders” at a military funeral political speech or hate speech? Is burning the American flag protected by the Constitution, while a sexist joke requires a fine or some kind of “sensitivity training”?
So, it seems that since purifying our thoughts is still beyond technology’s reach, Boulder will now attempt to achieve politically correct speech codes in other ways.
The council should realize, however ugly it may be, Americans still have the constitutional right to be racist, homophobic, Jew-hating or even to make bad jokes—as anyone who’s heard the one about the redneck who invented the ejection seat on the helicopter can tell you.
The most serious question, however, is will the hate-line folks forward their files to the Boulder police or City Council?
Once again I refer you to Jeff….
Precisely. There are no grounds whatsoever on which the ACLU can support this kind of thing, and yet—because they have become an organization increasingly interested in defending groups they feel have been socially marginalized (rather than protecting civil liberties in the abstract)—they are struggling with how to come to grips with Boulder’s “good intentions.”
Which is rubbish. No one has a constitional right not to be offended. And nothing the Boulder City Council says about it either way should matter in the slightest.
So to the ACLU I ask again, “Is banning hate speech a slippery slope or not?” Why are you not taking a position on this? It should be pretty simple. Are you for the thought police or against it? Are you for free speech, or only speech to hate America and rape little boys? Hypocrits!
Others: Iowa Voice
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12 Responses to “Hey ACLU! Is Banning Hate Speech A Slippery Slope Or Not?”
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Apparently you don’t even understand the ACLU’s position on this. Its clear reluctance to endorse the hate-line idea is rooted in its ramifications *on free speech*, which would be potentially curtailed by such an entity.
When Golden says, “Well, for the ACLU, that goes over the line … You can object to free speech just because someone is a Republican or a Democrat,” he’s saying that the ACLU *doesn’t like the idea* of people making such objections. Golden’s other chief objection — that people doing the reporting may not be able to do so confidentially — is another matter altogether and relates to general privacy, not free speech.
So, there’s no inconsistency afoot here.
By the way, I wish someone would shoot the funeral protesters you mentioned, but how does it strike you that the ACLU has defended the right of a bunch of rabid Christians to mouth off in a most unruly and stomach-churning way? I thought the ACLU hated Christians.
The one without a brain said:
By the way, I wish someone would shoot the funeral protesters you mentioned, but how does it strike you that the ACLU has defended the right of a bunch of rabid Christians to mouth off in a most unruly and stomach-churning way? I thought the ACLU hated Christians.
Makes me sick!
I seem to recall, “one w/o a brain” that the ACLU was indeed embroiled in trying to stop legislation that would have stopped that hate group from protesting at funerals…..and I am not even paying attention…so how did you miss that?
“how does it strike you that the ACLU has defended the right of a bunch of rabid Christians to mouth off in a most unruly and stomach-churning way? I thought the ACLU hated Christians.”
Rabid they are… Christian they are not.
As anyone here knows, if they were Christians, ‘The one with a brain’ and the ACLU both, would have been voraciously attacking them.
Said kender:
“I seem to recall that the ACLU was indeed embroiled in trying to stop legislation that would have stopped that hate group from protesting at funerals…..and I am not even paying attention…so how did you miss that?”
Let’s see. If the ACLU was trying to block anti-hateful-protester legislation, doesn’t that mean it was helping out the protesters?
You’re right about one thing though — you’re obviously not paying attention.
Loboinok, please don’t insult everyone’s intelligence by claiming that Fred Phelps and his band of losers are not Christians. Although most Christians quickly distance themselves from the man, he’s only doing what the Bible commands. It says in plain words that men who lie dowen with other men should die. So where is he in error? Seems like he’s a better Christian than these wishy-washy dingbats who don’t want to actually *kill* gays, but merely keep them from enjoying the same civil liberties as straights.
and the ACLU seems to be saying, brainles one, that hate speech is Boulder is OK, unless someone can find a way to make reporting it secret (like the soviet union)….in that case it is ok to report “hate speech”…..how do you not comprehend something so simple (the ACLU being hypocrites by not backing anti hate speech stuff) and continue to breath without mechanical assistance?
Good deal, kender. I pointed out that your previous post merely confirmed that the ACLU was defending free speech in this case, and rather than ‘fess up to yet another boo-boo, you bring up a different issue — in a way that again demonstrates you cannot integrate the information presented in an everyday newspaper story.
The issue for the ACLU is not the necessity of secrecy or the lack thereof. The issue is whether people know if their reports to the hotline are being made in confidence or not. Maybe you can understand the distinction, but I doubt it.
By the way, “breath” is a noun. “Breathe” is a verb. People like you really do need to refrain from questioning others’ intelligence until you find a way to bolster your own reading and writing skills to a middle-school level or higher, because I’m sick of brand-new irony meters shattering every time you start yammering away again.
‘please don’t insult everyone’s intelligence by claiming that Fred Phelps and his band of losers are not Christians.”
Don’t worry about everyone else. Most people on this forum know exactly who and what Phelps is. You obviously, don’t have a clue.
You telling me what a Christian is, is even more asinine than me telling you what an evolutionist is.
“So where is he in error?”
He, like you, leaves Christ out.
“Seems like he’s a better Christian than these wishy-washy dingbats…”
Yes, I imagine that in your estimation, he would seem better.
Here is a little bit of reading for you…
http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/michael_haggerty/expose3.htm
“You telling me what a Christian is, is even more asinine than me telling you what an evolutionist is.”
I suggest you engage your brain before trying to create analogies, because this one is farcical.
Are you trying to tell me that the Bible is not the ultimate source for determining what the chief tenets of Christianity are?
I’m sure you’re familiar with Leviticus 20:13, which reads (King James version):
“If a man also lie with mankind, as he lieth with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination: they shall surely be put to death. Their blood shall be upon them.”
Therefore, if Fred Phelps claims that “God hates fags,” he’s exactly right. Other Christians (luckily) claim that he’s nuts and distance themselves from what he does, but they’re hypocrites for doing so. If they weren’t picking and choosing from the Bible as they see fit they’d all be as far gone as Phelps, Pat Robertson and any number of other confirmed lunatics.
Furthermore, the word “evolutionist” is meaningless. Evolution is the name for a process that occurs regardless of people’s feelings about it. Similarlym, it doesn’t take a self-described “mathist” to ensure that adding two and two will produce a sum of four, nor does it require a “datist” for radioisotopes to properly reveal the age of the earth as five bilion years or so. Facts are independent of people’s awareness of them.
This is untrue of Christianity (and in fact of all religions), because without humans having invented it, it wouldn’t exist. Based as it is on an assortment of trumped-up myths concocted by men who lived two millinnia ago, it no more a natural phenomenon than a Stephen King novel or a gangsta-rap CD.
The one without a brain has an opinion…one I think is wrong, however it is his to have. Christianity is most likely defined differently by many who call themselves Christians. We have many different denominations, interpretations, etc. I think that the majority of Christians follow the New Testament’s philosphies. I don’t think they are hypocrits. I think most Christians do believe that homosexuality is a sin, and that God hates that sin. Most Christians adhere to Jesus’s philosphies on forgiveness. Not to judge others when we are full of our own sins, and that while God hates the sin, he still loves the individual and wants them to confess and be forgiven.
So, this is why I would not put Phelp’s cult under MY definition of Chrisitanity. It teaches hate of the individual. I don’t agree with teaching “tolerance” of homosexuality in the sense of telling others that it is “normal” or “ok”. I do belive in teaching tolerance in the sense that it is that individual’s choice, and none of our business. I also don’t believe in judging the gay individual for the lifestyle they choose to live.
I know that “the one without a brain” will scoff at my beliefs that homosexuality is wrong, but I hope they can appreciate where I am trying to draw the line on what most Christians have in their definition of Christianity.
It is also irrelevant to me that you believe that religion is a fairy tale. Even IF that were true, it wouldn’t matter. Even folklore, and myths have relevant moral messages that are good for society and the individual.
While we as Christians believe in an afterlife, heaven and hell, and an invisible force behind the universe; while we believe that one must believe that Jesus was the word of God that came down to save man, and that one must believe this to escape eternal damnation;….another does not have to believe in the divinity of Christ to see the common sense, decency, and wisdom within his teachings.
Refreshing to hear Jay.