Wednesday, December 08, 2004
Religion and speech
I have never understood why most Americans look askance at criticism of religious opinions -- it probably has something to do with the world's history of atrocities against religious minorities and the fear that criticism can motivate violence among the simple-minded bigots who hear the opinion -- but there is no denying that religious opinions enjoy a certain immunity from potshots that other opinions do not.
The United Kingdom is now proposing a new criminal offense, "incitement to religious hatred." Under the proposed statute, "anyone judged to have stirred up religious hatred through threatening, abusive or insulting behaviour, would be liable to a maximum of seven years in prison." What? For expressing an opinion? No wonder Allah has quit.
Sadly, this is not surprising, insofar as it is the obvious next step from having criminalized "hate," which was its own appallingly bad idea. Its obviousness only makes it all the more depressing that this criminalization of speech should become law in the United Kingdom.
Fortunately, there remain free men abroad in the world who feel as I do. Rowan Atkinson, AKA "Mr. Bean," captured my opinions precisely:
The freedom to criticise ideas - any ideas even if they are sincerely held beliefs - is one of the fundamental freedoms of society.
And the law which attempts to say you can criticise or ridicule ideas as long as they are not religious ideas is a very peculiar law indeed.
It all points to the promotion of the idea that there should be a right not to be offended. But in my view the right to offend is far more important than any right not to be offended.
The bolded text is the most important point -- the right to offend is far more important than any right to freedom from personal offense.
Put differently, the right to freedom of speech does not mean a damn thing for people whose views are broadly accepted in polite society. Even authoritarian regimes tolerate speech from people who say what everybody else says. The right of freedom of speech is meaningful only for people whose speech is offensive to the interests and sensibilities of most people. If you're not pissing somebody off, you're not using the First Amendment properly.
CWCID: Saw the Atkinson quotation at Andrew.
UPDATE: I got an email comment from a TigerHawk friend who is an employment law litigator in one of the top firms in the world. Slightly edited for style and typos, since he banged it out with his thumbs on a Blackberry:
You raise an interesting point. If we were to ever challenge Title VII or other employment laws on First Amendment grounds, it strikes me that religion would be the most fruitful if not the most interesting. Being able to say nasty things about women, for example, is and should be protected under the First Amendment, but it doesn't have the same force or dynamic as saying things about religion. I for one am increasingly convinced that Billy Graham may have had a point and Islam may well be a gutter religion, but I dare not say that at the workplace....
This all reminds me, however, of that comment [a friend of mine] made while we were at Yale. In the middle of a heated argument with a geek who later ended up being the husband of one our departed associates, he said in a moment of lucidity "You people are tolerant of everyone except the intolerant. When does intolerance get its day?"
3 Comments:
By 
Charlottesvillain, at
Wed Dec 08, 05:09:00 PM:
Well, I don't know the laws in the UK, but when they start that shit here I'm founding a church, and pronto!
By geoffrobinson, at
Wed Dec 08, 06:49:00 PM:
As an evangelical, I obviously have ruffled a few religious feathers in my lifetime. Why do people get so upset?
1) People don't like to be told (however nicely and non-coercevily) that they are under the wrath of God. Even if you are really really nice about this, you are telling people they aren't good enough.
2) People have put religion into this weird realm where everything anyone believes is true and beyond criticism. Not agreeing to this breaks detente.
By 
, at
Mon Dec 13, 09:40:00 AM:
This proposed legislation in the UK is interesting. Although on the surface it looks like it supports minority religions, i.e. Islam, Judaism etc, it actually comes off the back of a muslim preacher called Abu Hamza, who preached (outside of mainstream British muslim though I must add), that Jews and Christians should be killed.
Interestingly, comedians are upset over this proposed law as they can't make comments about religion. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/4075831.stm
Thanks,
Shapps
http://shappir.blog.com
