A Law We Can Live With

Having a First Amendment Isn’t Easy

“Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.” –The First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.

Two unrelated news items I saw this week point out the difficulties we brought upon ourselves by adding the above words to our Constitution. Please be assured that I am in no way advocating the slightest change to those words; I’m just pointing out that the exercise of those freedoms can be annoying and even a source of outrage.

 “The freedom of speech” can be a prickly thing. It includes, as these news items make clear, the right to be despicable and the right to lie.

On Tuesday, the U.S. Supreme Court acknowledged the right of members of the Westboro Baptist Church of Topeka, Kansas, to picket gravesite ceremonies of U.S. soldiers. The church’s placards have included such messages as “Thank God for Dead Soldiers,” “God Is Your Enemy,” “Thank God for 9/11,” “God Hates Fags,” “God Hates America,” and, perhaps most telling, “God Hates Happy People.” These are not happy people.

The court ruled eight to one that these hateful messages were protected under the First Amendment. Chief Justice John Roberts pointed out that in this country we have chosen “to protect even hurtful speech on public issues to ensure that we do not stifle public debate.”

Of course, he is right. It was the correct decision. We have to live with this kind of thing if we want to maintain our own right to say what we think.

“Our profound national commitment to free and open debate is not a license for the vicious verbal assault that occurred in this case,” wrote the lone dissenter on the court, Justice Samuel Alito. We all tend to agree with his sentiment, but look again at his words: “vicious” is a very subjective adjective while “assault” is quite objectively defined in the law. Although the vast majority of citizens would agree that the Westboro placards represented “vicious verbal assault,” it’s very difficult to prohibit such activities without curtailing the rights of others.

I agree with the chief justice. We just have to live with it.

On a lighter note, while we also have to live with the lack of journalistic integrity of Faux News and the Limbaugh clones, Canada has managed to avoid them. Robert Kennedy, Jr. reports that our neighbor to the north has a law that forbids lying on broadcast news (http://readersupportednews.org/opinion2/276-74/5123-fox-news-lies-keep-them-out-of-canada).

“Canada's Radio Act requires that ‘a licenser [I think that should be “licensee”] may not broadcast ... any false or misleading news,’” Kennedy writes. “The provision has kept Fox News and right-wing talk radio out of Canada and helped make Canada a model for liberal democracy and freedom. As a result of that law, Canadians enjoy high quality news coverage, including the kind of foreign affairs and investigative journalism that flourished in this country before Ronald Reagan abolished the ‘Fairness Doctrine’ in 1987. Political dialogue in Canada is marked by civility, modesty, honesty, collegiality, and idealism that have pretty much disappeared on the US airwaves.”

Sounds pretty good, doesn’t it? We could sure use more civility and all those other attributes down here.

But, once again, we have chosen to bend over backwards “to protect even hurtful speech on public issues to ensure that we do not stifle public debate.” Go ahead and lie, Rush. Keep the “birther” nonsense coming, Faux. The First Amendment’s got you covered.

On the other hand, Rush and his cronies have to put up with people like me.

To paraphrase a slogan that supported the national 55-mph speed limit, “The First Amendment. It’s a law we can live with.”