President Karzai of Afghanistan has called for the Obama administration to condemn the recent Koran-burning in Florida by Pastor Wayne Sapp. The symbolic immolation of the book led to riots that left 22 dead. Obama has obliged by describing it as an act of “extreme intolerance and bigotry”. But Karzai wants Obama to go further and “bring those responsible to justice”.
It is not clear what that would mean in the US. First Amendment free speech protection doesn’t discriminate on the basis of the content of speech short of its posing a direct threat to others. Offensive expression, including symbolic flag- or Koran-burning, is just as protected as liberal political speech-making.
To take the most famous example, the neo-Nazis who wanted to march through Skokie in Illinois in 1977, where many Holocaust survivors lived, had as much right to express their views as anyone else. Controversially, the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) sprang to the their defence.
In that case the marchers, having secured their free speech rights in court, were persuaded to protest elsewhere. Only last year Pastor Terry Jones also backed down from this threat to burn Korans on the 9/11 anniversary, though most experts agreed that if he had gone ahead with the burning on private property he would have been unlikely to have committed any crime.
But sometimes offensive protestors follow through and make their point as threatened in a way that triggers strong reactions. In the case of Pastor Wayne Sapp, that’s what happened, and with fatal consequences thousands of miles away in Afghanistan, where another group of intolerant people took violent and utterly inexcusable “revenge” on 22 people.
Free speech issues are rarely straightforward. Some people would like to think they are, but they aren’t. The key question is always where a society wants to draw the line, not whether there should be a line at all. But I believe strongly that explosive reactions on the part of the offended shouldn’t determine where that line is drawn.
Such a reaction would give the power to circumscribe the limits of everyone’s freedom to those who have the angriest voices, and are swiftest to resort to violence. Instead we need to protect the freedom to criticise religion and religions, both in words and symbolic actions, as a fundamental right.
Put simply, no idea or object should be sacrosanct from criticism or ridicule, and we should be clear that we condemn violence far more than we condemn the expression of offensive views. We do not want to go back to the Dark Ages of blasphemy laws, or modern equivalents of them.
In one sense, the US Supreme Court this week did exactly what the Westboro Baptist Church has never been able to — it drew a distinction between the value of a principle (free speech) and its members’ feelings about those associated with it (in this case, a few fanatics carrying signs that say “Thank God for Dead Soldiers”). As many proponents of the ruling have recognised, it’s possible to love the right and hate those who exercise it at the same time. It may be hard, but it’s possible.
Members of the Westboro Baptist Church, on the other hand, have long exhibited a particularly odd kind of confusion, conflating dead American soldiers (who are not gay) with America’s tolerance of homosexuality (which has even less to do with the wars those soldiers died in). As more forgiving Christians like to preach: “Hate the sin, not the sinner.” This is a distinction Westboro Baptist clearly does not make (leaving aside the question of whether homosexuality is even a sin at all).
What the Supreme Court decision says is that we cannot confuse principle with personal animosity, the very offense Rev Fred Phelps and his family commit each time they demonstrate their ethical opposition to homosexuality within eyesight of a private funeral.
“Speech is powerful,” the Court ruled. “It can stir people to action, move them to tears of both joy and sorrow, and — as it did here — inflict great pain. On the facts before us, we cannot react to that pain by punishing the speaker. As a Nation we have chosen a different course — to protect even hurtful speech on public issues to ensure that we do not stifle public debate.”
In the reaction to the ruling, many Americans are having a hard time drawing this distinction, compartmentalising hatred for Westboro Baptist from support for the core American principle of free speech even for those with whom we disagree. The individuals in question are just so vile, their attacks so clearly choreographed to achieve maximum offence, prodding America’s rawest nerves at the intersection of deference to the armed forces and respect for the dead. And Westboro Baptist isn’t making it easy on those angered by the decision to see its larger wisdom. Since the ruling, church members have gloated that the court has only encouraged them to picket even more.
Hearing this — and the anguished reaction of Albert Snyder, father of the dead soldier in question — the two most prominent US veterans’ organisations, the Veterans of Foreign Wars and the American Legion, have denounced the decision. So has a seeming plurality of the thousands of message-board commenters on news sites covering the story.
But in a strong sign that much of the furor is really aimed at Westboro Baptist itself — and not at the concept that people whom we dislike have free-speech rights as well — even First Amendment hardliners have found themselves caught in a moment of hypocrisy this week.
“Common sense & decency absent as wacko ‘church’ allowed hate msgs spewed@ soldiers’ funerals but we can’t invoke God’s name in public square,” Palin tweeted.
Tom Brokaw, a veteran broadcast journalist who should know the value of free speech (two-dozen media organisations swallowed hard and filed amicus briefs on behalf of Westboro Baptist) called the ruling “outrageous.”
Prominent Fox News talk-show host Bill O’Reilly, who regularly champions the Tea Party war cry that the federal government better not tread on individual freedoms, opposed the decision as well.
“With the rise of the Internet, cowardly sociopaths are running wild with hateful invective, outrageous smears and bullying tactics that have caused some kids to commit suicide,” he said on his show. “The Supreme Court needs to wise up. It’s not just about free speech anymore. It’s about personal destruction.”
Conservatives like O’Reilly and Palin found themselves in the awkward position of bashing a decision written by the right’s favorite jurist, Chief Justice John Roberts — and in the equally awkward position of agreeing with Democratic Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid.
“I am very disappointed in today’s Supreme Court decision to allow hateful extremists to attempt to sully the memories of heroes who have fought and died to protect this country, and to heap more hurt on already grief-stricken families,” Reid said in a statement. “These families have only one chance to bury loved ones who made the ultimate sacrifice. They deserve the right to mourn without being subjected to the ugly signs and slurs of fanatics.
These are visceral reactions, not well thought-out ones, and they come more from a deep-rooted desire to protect mourning military families than a necessary calculation over how to maintain the First Amendment. As time passes and the visceral unease wanes, opponents of the decision may come to see that the Supreme Court in fact showed nuanced tolerance of the kind Westboro Baptist would never be capable.
The US Supreme Court ruled yesterday by an 8-1 vote that the bizarre anti-gay funeral picketers belonging to the Westboro Baptist Church have a First Amendment right to free speech. Rev Fred Phelps and his crew have been waving placards with messages such as “Thank God for Dead Soldiers” and “AIDS Cures Fags” at military funerals to promote their belief that God is punishing the US for accepting homosexuality.
The Supreme Court decision (see below) overruled a previous award of over $10 million (reduced on appeal to $5 million) to the family of Lance Corporal Matthew Snyder in relation to a protest at his funeral. Snyder’s father reacted by saying that the eight justices didn’t have the common sense that God gave a goat.
Should we be celebrating this as a victory for free speech? While no one would welcome a visit from the Westboro protestors at the funeral of a loved one, there are several distinctive features of this case.
First, undoubtedly debate about war, its causes and casualties is important. This was “speech” in a public place on an issue of public concern, even though the particular hypothesis is ridiculous and offensive. Free speech protection can’t, however, just be for views already presumed to be true.
Secondly, protestors were scrupulous about staying within the letter of the law. They knew that they had to remain 1,000 feet from the funeral, for instance, and did not shout or otherwise disrupt the service. Preventing such orderly protests on issues of importance would have been a serious attack on civil liberties, even though the protestors displayed gross insensitivity to those mourning.
So, yes, we should welcome this decision even though it protects bigots of limited reasoning ability about cause and effect who are indifferent to the feelings of the recently bereaved. The best response to hateful speech is surely counter-speech. At many recent military funerals, counter-protestors have arrived early in their thousands and occupied the prime spaces in the surrounding area. That is a far better reaction than a legal gagging order.
Two of Britain’s leading universities have again found themselves embroiled in free speech debates. The Oxford Union courted controversy last Friday when it allowed banned preacherDr Zakir Naik to address the society via video-link. LSE’s German Society has provoked similar outcry by inviting far right banker Thilo Sarrazin and author Henryk Broder to speak on Monday. Fortunately, free speech has triumphed in each case.
A letter signed by over a hundred UK-based German academics and students objected to the LSE’s choice of panellists. One of their primary concerns is the speakers’ argument that “there exists a pathological unwillingness among minorities in Germany (in particular Muslims) to integrate into society”.
But there is a case for Sarrazin and Broder’s participation. If their opinions are expressed, there will be an opportunity for the other side to provide evidence to the contrary, and so to “correct” this impression. Suppressing this argument could suggest that it is an unpalatable truth to which there is no adequate rebuttal.
The controversy is reminicsent of the Griffin and Irving debate in 2007. The Oxford Union invited BNP chairman Nick Griffin and holocaust denier David Irving to speak. The Union building was overwhelmed by protestors — despite concerns that giving these figures a platform would “give legitimacy and credibility to their views”.
Ignoring these views is not an option. As abhorrent as they may be to many, they are more threatening when they are unknown. Open debate is the only effective way to illuminate the issues. Without such clarification we are poorly placed to combat them.
These are matters of public interest and they should not be concealed, regardless of the sensibilities they may offend. As the LSE Free Speech Group remarked, “the likelihood that offence would be caused was not in itself a reason to prevent the event from going ahead.”
Former UK Prime Minister Harold Macmillan described the Oxford Union as “the last bastion of free speech in the Western world”. The Society was “founded on an ideal of the Freedom of Speech”. It would be insupportable for the Union to compromise this principle, even in the face of such vigorous protest.
Unfortunately, that is exactly what happened in the Chris Langham affair. British comedian Chris Langham had been scheduled to address the Union on his arrest for downloading child pornography. Fearing a reaction on the scale of the Griffin and Irving protests, the Oxford Union cancelled the event.
