Below is today’s column in The Los Angeles Times exploring the growing attacks on free speech in the West and the recent controversy of the “Zombie Mohammad” case.
The recent exchange between an atheist and a judge in a small courtroom in rural Pennsylvania could have come out of a Dickens novel. Magisterial District Judge Mark Martin was hearing a case in which an irate Muslim stood accused of attacking an atheist, Ernest Perce, because he was wearing a “Zombie Mohammed” costume on Halloween. Although the judge had “no doubt that the incident occurred,” he dismissed the charge of criminal harassment against the Muslim and proceeded to browbeat Perce. Martin explained that such a costume would have led to Perce’s execution in many countries under sharia, or Islamic law, and added that Perce’s conduct fell “way outside your bounds of 1st Amendment rights.”
The case has caused a national outcry, with many claiming that Martin was applying sharia law over the Constitution — a baseless and unfair claim. But while the ruling certainly doesn’t suggest that an American caliphate has gained a foothold in American courts, it was nevertheless part of a disturbing trend. The conflict in Cumberland County between free speech and religious rights is being played out in courts around the world, and free speech is losing.
Perce was marching in a parade with a fellow atheist dressed as a “Zombie Pope” when he encountered Talaag Elbayomy, who was outraged by the insult to the prophet. The confrontation was captured on Perce’s cellphone. Nevertheless, Martin dismissed the charge against Elbayomy. Then he turned to Perce, accusing him of acting like a “doofus.” Martin said: “It’s unfortunate that some people use the 1st Amendment to deliberately provoke others. I don’t think that’s what our forefathers intended.”
For many, the case confirmed long-standing fears that sharia law is coming to this country. The alarmists note that in January, a federal court struck down an Oklahoma law that would have barred citing sharia law in state courts. But there is no threat of that, and certainly not in Oklahoma, which has fewer than 6,000 Muslims in the entire state. Rather, the campaign against sharia law has distracted the public from the very real threat to free speech growing throughout the West.
To put it simply, Western nations appear to have fallen out of love with free speech and are criminalizing more and more kinds of speech through the passage of laws banning hate speech, blasphemy and discriminatory language. Ironically, these laws are defended as fighting for tolerance and pluralism.
After the lethal riots over Dutch cartoons in 2005 satirizing Muhammad, various Western countries have joined Middle Eastern countries in charging people with insulting religion. And prosecutions are now moving beyond anti-religious speech to anti-homosexual or even anti-historical statements. In Canada last year, comedian Guy Earle was found to have violated the human rights of a lesbian couple by making insulting comments at a nightclub. In Britain, Dale Mcalpine was charged in 2010 with causing “harassment, alarm or distress” after a gay community police officer overheard him stating that he viewed homosexuality as a sin. The charges were later dropped.
Western countries are on a slippery slope where more and more speech is cited by citizens as insulting and thus criminal. Last year, on the Isle of Wight, musician Simon Ledger was arrested on suspicion of racially aggravated harassment after a passing person of Chinese descent was offended by Ledger’s singing “Kung Fu Fighting.” Although the charges were eventually dropped, the arrest sends a chilling message that such songs are voiced at one’s own risk.
Some historical debates have now become hate speech. After World War II, Germany criminalized not just Nazi symbols but questioning the Holocaust. Although many have objected that the laws only force such ignorance and intolerance underground, the police have continued the quixotic fight to prevent barred utterances, such as the arrest in 2010 of a man in Hamburg caught using a Hitler speech as a ring tone.
In January, the French parliament passed a law making it a crime to question the Armenian genocide. The law was struck down by the Constitutional Council, but supporters have vowed to introduce a new law to punish deniers. When accused of pandering to Armenian voters, the bill’s author responded, “That’s democracy.”
Perhaps, but it is not liberty. Most democratic constitutions strive not to allow the majority to simply dictate conditions and speech for everyone — the very definition of what the framers of the U.S. Constitution called tyranny of the majority. It was this tendency that led John Adams to warn: “Democracy … soon wastes, exhausts and murders itself. There was never a democracy yet that did not commit suicide.”
Legislators in the United States have shown the same taste for speech prosecutions. In June, Tennessee legislators passed a law making it a crime to “transmit or display an image” online that is likely to “frighten, intimidate or cause emotional distress” to someone who sees it. The law leaves free speech dependent not only on the changing attitudes of what constitutes a disturbing image but whether others believe it was sent for a “legitimate purpose.” This applies even to postings on Facebook or social media.
Judge Martin’s comments are disturbing because they reflect the same emerging view of the purpose and, more important, the perils of free speech. Martin told Perce that “our forefathers” did not intend the 1st Amendment “to piss off other people and cultures.” Putting aside the fact that you could throw a stick on any colonial corner and hit three people “pissed off” at Thomas Paine or John Adams, the 1st Amendment was designed to protect unpopular speech. We do not need a 1st Amendment to protect popular speech.
The exchange between the judge and the atheist in Mechanicsburg captures the struggle that has existed between free speech and religion for ages. What is different is that it is now a struggle being waged on different terms. Where governments once punished to achieve obedience, they now punish to achieve tolerance. As free speech recedes in the West, it is not sharia but silence that is following in its wake.
Jonathan Turley is a professor of public interest law at George Washington University.
Los Angeles Times, March 9, 2012
Elaine,
Thank goodness that it was not a federal cover up….. You’d probably only find about a reporter is missing…. Nothing else….. Unless…… Endless speculation….
Here’s a story for you:
Michael Meehan, Berkeley Police Chief, Sent Armed Cop To Reporter’s Home At Midnight, Potentially Violated First Amendment
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/03/10/michael-meehan-berkeley-police_n_1336992.html
Excerpt;
Berkeley Police Chief Michael Meehan has come under fire after sending an armed sergeant to Oakland Tribune reporter Doug Oakley’s home in the middle of the night to push for changes to a story.
According to the Oakland Tribune, Meehan claimed that Oakley misquoted him in a story. Minutes after reading the article, Meehan ordered Sgt. Mary Kusmiss to visit the reporter’s home and request that he correct the article — at 12:45 a.m.
“At first I thought something really bad was happening or they were coming for me, like I was going to be arrested,” said Oakley to Berkeleyside. “It was really intimidating.”
Oakley had reported on Meehan’s comments at a community meeting regarding the murder of Berkeley resident Peter Cukor — an incident that garnered significant media attention after it was reported that the police may not have responded immediately since they were busy with an Occupy protest.
According to Berkeleyside, Oakley originally wrote that Meehan had apologized for the police department’s response during the incident. However, Meehan had actually apologized for the department’s failure to communicate with the public about the incident, not for the police action.
“I would say it was an overzealous attempt to make sure that accurate information is put out,” said Meehan in a statement apologizing for the late-night visit. “I could have done better.”
However, some have argued that Meehan violated the First Amendment, using intimidation and censorship by sending an armed officer to Oakley’s home at night.
Here, here. Please, do not tread on my 1st Amendment rights.
Pointless quip?
Now why would I want to steal your act, Test?
gene; you really are too pathetic for words…. you and bd are the flip side of the same wooden nickel. both of you manage to bring nothing of value to every discussion.
feel free to take whatever last pointless quip you like to demonstrate just how empty you are.
Gene Again – you are free to say whatever you like and I’m free to respond however I like. That is unless there something or someone compelling your actions. Those are factors under your control. How I respond to your pablum isn’t under your control.
If you’ve got a problem with that, it is entirely your problem.
and don’t you forget it.
Bdaman,
As long as you’re willing to post lies, distractions and propaganda? I’m willing to point it out. As are others.
I’m not the one who forgot that rule in the first place, Mr. The Left Is Always Trying to Silence Me. No one here has tried to silence you. Hoped for your silence, sure. Some may have even prayed for your silence. Many probably would prefer your silence much like they’d prefer that dog down the street who barks at nothing for hours upon end to shut up. But no one here has tried to silence you. Sell your persecution complex to somebody who might believe it. Say people with a propensity to believe whatever they’re told that confirms to their preconceptions. Like AGW deniers or birthers.
*****************
id707,
I’m certain it has been tried to varying degrees of success. However, some infections are more persistent than others.
GeneH
Fun to watch. Was wondering what value they offer in the long run.
I know now that I didn’t have a chance. They will never understand.
Could they be successfully silenced by ignoring all ploys? Or has that already been tried?
Again – you are free to say whatever you like and I’m free to respond however I like. That is unless there something or someone compelling your actions. Those are factors under your control. How I respond to your pablum isn’t under your control.
If you’ve got a problem with that, it is entirely your problem.
and don’t you forget it.
Bdaman,
Not funny at all. Not even ironic. Simply the truth. We is still the correct usage. Why? Because even though I don’t set policy, I am part of the We that are responsible for it. I did not at any time tell you that you could not attack Dredd here. I said it was inappropriate and would net you nothing. The rest was simply me speaking the truth about my personal preferences concerning you which have nothing to do with the blog policy. And while we’re on the topic, my preference has nothing to do with what you say but rather everything to do with your apparent sole purpose in life which seems to be to act as a distraction from whatever topic is being discussed by repeatedly flooding threads with your agenda even on threads that have no bearing whatsoever to your agenda(s).
Why does a person do something like that, Bdaman? When that question is asked, none of the answers show your actions in a favorable light. At best they show you as an annoyance, at worst they show you to be a political operative intent on reducing the quality of this blog. Again, what I prefer is irrelevant here. Just as irrelevant as most of your bullshit. The only relevant fact here is that the policy of this blog is you are free to say what you like, which also means I’m free to criticize what you say however I like – including telling you that I think you’re such a pest that if I were the one setting policy here (just like Dredd is setting policy at his blog), I’d kick you out because you post like a troll. If you don’t like that I’ve said this? No one is paying you to come here. Or are they? Feel free to leave any time you like. No one is forcing you to address me. Or are they? Again – you are free to say whatever you like and I’m free to respond however I like. That is unless there something or someone compelling your actions. Those are factors under your control. How I respond to your pablum isn’t under your control.
If you’ve got a problem with that, it is entirely your problem.
Allow me to repeat what I said earlier,
The left always wants to shut down free speech one way or another.
Al Gore there will be no more debate the science is settled.
Gloria Alred arrest Rush for what he said.
David Suzuki deny deniers right to deny
Gene Howington wants to ban people whom he thinks are a nuisance
The list goes on and on.
Guard, silence that man
We’re the decision mine alone, I would have banned you long ago for being a nuisance.
Funny you say that in a thread about free speech.
We means you speak for everyone else. Something you can not do with out the express consent of whom ever you consider we to be. Please give me a list who has said I’ll let Gene speak for me.
1zb1,
Lose? You keep using that word, yet you don’t know what it means apparently. Also, I didn’t say you picked your boogers. I implied that you had all of your fingers including the one some people would use for that function. Personally, I don’t care where you stick your fingers as long as it’s on your own body or with consent of another.
*********
Bdaman,
We is the proper term. Because if I’d said I? We’re the decision mine alone, I would have banned you long ago for being a nuisance. However, as you point out, I don’t own this space, I just work here part time. Lucky thing for you, isn’t it?
China, yep, the worst polluters on the planet. Well at least they measures in place to control their population.
We ? what do you got, a rat in your pocket or a mouse. You don’t own this blog, your just a guest with special privileges.
gene: you said –
“booger picking finger to a particle beam weapons fight”
it is a sure sign of a looser when they have to resort to name calling in place of facts and reason… you have managed to prove that time and again.
p.s. judge martin is a lt. col. in the army reserve. the religious right jumped all over his decision but in the perverse way of promoting the imposition of their own religion.
1zb1,
“gene, first you inject a word tc used and i didn’t and now you inject another word i didn’t use – “malice” as the basis to draw a distinction between our rants.”
First, I was responding to Tony, not you.
Second, it’s not my fault you don’t know what Heinlein’s Razor is, but if you did, you’d know where the word malice came from.
Third, I said I agreed with you in general but not in the specific instance already which would make you the one playing silly word games. Or simply the one who can’t read.
Fourth, if you’re going to play silly word games, don’t bring your booger picking finger to a particle beam weapons fight.
*************
Bdaman,
Once again, you’re free to say whatever you like. You’re also free to have it challenged. That we tolerate your constant monotonous ridiculous AGW denier threadjacking nonsense around here simply illustrates the commitment to free speech. Most websites and blogs would have banned you years ago because of your nuisance value alone. However, if you have a problem with having your nonsense challenged around here? That would be entirely your problem.
MM: so we pollute the air, water, and land but none of that impacts on the weather? AND even if that were true (it isn’t) I guess by your way of thinking polluting the air, water, and land is okay as long as it doesn’t impact on the weather (just our health).
Maybe you need to visit China and get an idea of what your world is all about:
http://www.bing.com/images/search?q=pollution+china&view=detail&id=600572DA8FE03C24550E887A20D0D61B0A786B87&first=121&FORM=IDFRIR
This world is going to wax old just like we do. Being like Jesus is prepares us for what will come after when God says it is done.