...and even assholes have rights.
Today the US Supreme Court ruled 8-1 that vile hate group Westboro Baptist Church has the legal right to continue their vile “God Hates Fags” protests at the funerals of US soldiers. It’s a court case that pits free speech against human decency, and free speech won out.
From the New York Times:
“Debate on public issues should be robust, uninhibited and wide-open,” [Chief Justice John Roberts] wrote, because “speech on public issues occupies the highest rung of the hierarchy of First Amendment values.”
Chief Justice Roberts wrote that…while the messages on the signs carried by its members “may fall short of refined social or political commentary,” he wrote, “the issues they highlight — the political and moral conduct of the United States and its citizens, the fate of our nation, homosexuality in the military and scandals involving the Catholic clergy — are matters of public import.”
All of that means, the chief justice wrote, that the protesters’ speech “cannot be restricted simply because it is upsetting or arouses contempt.”
Look, WBC is so hideous that even the most homophobic conservative evangelicals look at WBC’s protests and rush to clarify: “Hey, I’m not with those guys—they’re fucked-up.” Unfortunately, the most fucked-up among us have the right to protest peacefully and make their views known, no matter how inflammatory, hateful, and disgusting those views may be.
The good news is that while WBC exhibits the the lowest possible form of free speech, you can always see the very best of free speech at the counter-protests that accompany every WBC appearance. In fact, counter-protestors regularly outnumber WBC protestors, often by as much as 20-1. I wrote about one such counter-protest at ComiCon last year. You don’t always get what you want when you uphold free speech, but if you don’t like the speech you’re hearing, the best cure is more free speech.
I know I’ve told the regulars here that my older brother was killed in Iraq. I may have commented before about the “Patriot Guard.” They are a group of bikers, made up largely of vets and their families, who escort the Hearse and the family of the fallen soldier. If WBC makes a showing, they form a rather formidable wall with their bodies, bikes, and flags. I don’t know who wouldn’t find that intimidating! Luckily – my brother’s rather high profile funeral (over 1500 in attendance at a mid-week, mid-day funeral) did not draw the attention of the WBC idiots. So the Patriot Guard was just a nice rock n roll touch to the stuffy, impersonal military ceremony.
Totes agree, Becky. The First Amendment is precisely to protect the most objectionable kinds of speech. And I notice that WBC tends to disappear when counter-protesters show up, bullies that they are. Peaceful, joyful (when appropriate) counter demonstrations are the perfect antidote to hate.
Just because WBC has the right to protest doesn’t mean they have the right to do it without opposition.
AmBam, if I haven’t said this before, you and your family have my sincere sympathy on the loss of your brother.
AmBam, I am so sorry about your brother.
Chomsky said that the right of free speech includes free speech for the most despised, and I think that is true. Do I think this is true because I am an American, tho?
It’s a really interesting coincidence that John Galiano is or will be arrested in France due to his hateful spewing. In the US our supreme court has come down and the side of Phelp’s right to free speech, a liberty. While in France the gov’t has come down on the side of banning hate speech, a claim right that the French make on Galiano and other “hate speakers”.
I find this contrast really really interesting and I wonder why it works out this why. Why has France come down on the side of a claim right while the US on the side of a liberty when these two competing ideas are in opposition?
I am no expert in European culture, so help me out Harpies. I just wonder if France’s (and Germany’s) position springs from the fact that WWII was fought in France and Germany, and ours in the US springs from the fact that it wasn’t.
@Rodriguez: From a legal standpoint, I believe the European countries see pro-Nazi and other hate speech as an incitement to violence, which is why it falls outside of their free speech protections. Given their history, I can understand why they’d want to legislate against hate speech, but doing so certainly hasn’t prevented anti-Semitism/racism/race-baiting in either country—both have active white supremacist/anti-immigrant political movements.
As for Galliano, prosecuting him for his drunken ravings about Hitler is ridiculous. You simply can’t make a logical argument that he was trying to incite violence against Jews with those comments. At most, he was trying to piss off some people he disagreed with in a bar. Hateful and reprehensible, yes, but in a free society, you can’t prosecute assholes simply for being assholes.
@AmBam: I’m so sorry about your brother. And glad to know that there are some ass-kicking vets who will keep things civil at military funerals if WBC shows up—that’s a true good deed on their part.
so Becky you think that if Galiano is arrested it’s due to a misapplication of French law? that’s interesting
@Rodriguez: It may very well be that one can be arrested in France for hate speech just for yelling anti-Semitic epithets at someone. From what I’ve read, there weren’t any blows exchanged, so if he’s arrested, I assume it’s for that.
If that is, in fact, the law in France, then arresting him not necessarily a misapplication of the law. It’s just a ridiculous, nearly unenforceable law, IMO. Are the authorities seriously going to round up every French person who makes an anti-Semitic remark in a public space? Because they don’t have a prison system big enough if that’s the case—in France or any other European country.
And I also think that even though they’re abhorrent, making anti-Semitic remarks (or racist remarks, or homophobic remarks) should fall under free-speech protections, but that may just be my American bias.
I am grateful that Canada has laws specifically against hate speech. It doesn’t ban obnoxious or controversial speech, but it does ban speech that publicly incites violence or discrimination against “protected groups” (as defined by the Charter of Rights and Freedoms) – typically protections against discrimination on the basis of gender, physical disability, women, sexual orientation, race, religion, etc.
Their right to “free speech” does not trump other people’s rights to safe public spaces. Period.
No one cares what you say in your own home or church, but if you are in a public forum, it matters.
@BeckySharper: If France is anything like in Canada, a hate speech complaint needs to be registered with the Human Rights Commission and it goes to trial. You don’t get arrested on the spot, although if you are known for being homophobic and you are caught beating a gay person (for example) then you are likely to get caught up in the anti-hate laws as well. What it works out to is: talking racist shit with your buddies as you walk down the street: not hate speech. Talking racist shit as you give a speech in a public assembly, or publishing white supremacist materials and selling them on your web site? Potentially hate speech. Teaching holocaust denier bullshit in a public school? Potentially hate speech. Spray painting a swastika on a random wall somewhere? Not hate speech. Spray painting a swastika on a Jewish home? Potentially hate speech.
People deserve protection and safety more than real life trolls deserve the right to spew garbage.
I know our prison system gets bigger every day here in America, but I don’t think it’s ever going to be big enough to contain everyone who hurls racial epithets at anyone who doesn’t look white whenever that person is inconvenient or annoying. Seriously, I’m just not-white-enough that if I yell at someone to control their dog at the park or refuse to let someone cut in line at the DMV, there’s a 30-50% chance I’m going to hear a random racial epithet (it’s based on the attacker’s personal bias – I apparently look middle eastern, Chinese, Mexican, and black on different days). I pass as white (and think of myself as white) 90% of the time, but if I refuse to defer to a racist, my dark hair and slightly olive skin suddenly make me Other and open for attack. And trust me, there are a lot of racists willing to spew that garbage in public places with no regards to the presence of my children or the fact that they are invariable men who are significantly bigger than me.
And it hurts and it sucks and I wish my kids didn’t have to see it (mostly. Sometimes I’m glad that my entirely-white-looking kids are going to understand the prevalence of racism in a way that my entirely-white husband never will) and I wish I never felt threatened at the post office. But I’m terribly afraid of the slippery slope. I can absolutely agree that WBC spews hate speech, but Amanda Marcotte at Pandagon gets accused of hate speech every time she mentions the Catholic Church, which I’m certain is nonsense. I worry very much about who gets to make the decision. I don’t think that outlawing hate speech is doing anything to combat actual racism or anti-Semitism in Europe, and I don’t think it would help here. I think it’s a law too open to misuse without a clear benefit to the common good.
Also, I don’t think we should drive racist speech underground. I want the WBC out there protesting funerals and high schools and generally looking insane. There are too many privileged straight white people who are well-meaning but can’t really conceive of what bigotry is like for people who aren’t so privileged. Every time they see actual bigotry at work in the real world, they come closer to getting it. And I, for one, would like it if my white husband who grew up in town with like, six people of color, had some idea of how constant the bigotry is. He can know intellectually, but until he sees a lot more of it, he’s not going to get it.
@Avogadro I have the same worry you do – who gets to decide what hate speech is?
Given that, maybe our (current) bias towards allowing free speech when it clashes with claim rights against hate speech is the right choice.
Becky’s point is interesting: France and Germany make hate speech laws even though their laws don’t have the intended effect of preventing organized antisemitism.
rodriguez: I have only a passing knowledge of France, but if I recall correctly, it has some of the strongest hate speech laws in the world. It’s not just for anti-semitism either. Brigitte Bardot has, if i recall, been arrested several times for making statements that were taken as hateful towards Islam.
My American mind has always led me to believe that the first amendment serves the public interest by advancing the “sunshine is the best disinfectant” line of reasoning. If Fred Phelps can speak, then so can we, and we can face his rhetoric head on with our own. Germany, particularly in the East, has always had a constant neo-nazi presence and school of thought. I wonder a lot whether the banning of such speech is what keeps it alive. Are people inclined to think, “well, if they’ve banned it, they must be afraid of it. If the government fears it, is there something to it, then?” I have no clue, but I wonder about it often.
Are people inclined to think, “well, if they’ve banned it, they must be afraid of it. If the government fears it, is there something to it, then?” I have no clue, but I wonder about it often.
Me too. In some ways, banning anti-Semitic/racist speech turns anti-Semitism or racism into a way for people to oppose the government. So even if the government isn’t pro-Jewish or pro-immigrant—and Maude knows, the Sarkozy and Merkel administrations are NOT—racism and anti-Semitism become a convenient way for people to express their anger at the government, and minorities and immigrants just get caught in the cross-fire.
@wondering: People deserve protection and safety more than real life trolls deserve the right to spew garbage.
True. But there are plenty of people who would claim that they deserve to be protected from my immoral, feminist, Jewish, immigrant-loving, pro-gay garbage. I mean, even this blog has been accused of hate speech by a Canadian who thought we should be charged under Canadian hate-speech laws. My concern is that depending on who’s in power, letting the state determine what’s protected speech and what isn’t can be used as a silencing tactic against whoever’s NOT in power.
(But I’d exempt things that are obviously meant as intimidation, like public threats, painting swastikas or burning crosses. Legally, those things are usually lumped under terroristic threats and not protected by free speech laws.)
True, true. another major concern is the ability of those accused of hate speech to use their arrests to cultivate a “martyr” or persecuted image. I’m thinking particularly of Geert Wilders, whose basically built an entire career off of “I speak the truth because I am constantly arrested for hate speech” type of people. Somebody like that probably loves more restrictive laws because they basically created the means for him to advance his career.
I may not like what someone has to say (especially the WBC), but I’m a lot more afraid of someone having the power to decide what is or is not acceptable speech. (That way lies totalitarianism…)
So I’m with Av0gadro: Speak, ye idiots! Loudly and in public, so that those of us who argue for humanity can point to you as an example of how NOT to act.
Also, AmBam, my condolences to your family, and I’m glad the Patriot Guard was there to make sure you were not harassed. (And to relieve the stuffy-is-the-only-form-of-honor atmosphere!)
@Rodriguez: I’m not sure how the French hate laws work, but I’d imagine it’s quite different from in Germany. Becky’s right about Germany – you have free speech except in the case of what they call ‘Volksverhetzung’, which is incitement of the people to violence, basically.
From Wikipedia: ‘It is a common misconception that Volksverhetzung includes any spreading of nazism, racist, or other discriminatory ideas. For any hate speech to be punishable as Volksverhetzung, the law requires that said speech be “qualified for disturbing public peace” either by inciting “hatred against parts of the populace” or calling for “acts of violence or despotism against them”, or by attacking “the human dignity of others by reviling, maliciously making contemptible or slandering parts of the populace”.’
There’s also a special paragraph about the Holocaust, saying that anyone who denies it, trivializes it, or endorses it is guilty of ‘Volksverhetzung’. So in Germany Galliano would have committed a crime.
@Becky Sharper: In Canada, hate speech specifically involves inciting violence, so unless your “immoral, feminist, Jewish, immigrant-loving, pro-gay garbage” included a call to arms to eliminate all right-wing homophobes, it would not constitute hate speech.
Another interesting point: I only recently discovered that in the US it is perfectly legal for media to deliberately spread misinformation under the guise of free speech. I can’t even express how shocked I was to hear that. In Canada, that is against the law. This is another limitation on free speech that I am grateful for. Opinion is, of course, still perfectly legal, but you can’t present something as a fact when it is obviously a lie.
@wondering: In which case, I assume Fox News is blacked out in Canada.
Actually, you can now get Fox News but through a special cable subscription. For example, I have three tiers of cable with over a 100 channels but Fox News is not part of the package, you need to order a special package, so you’d have to specifically want to get Fox News. This is a recent change; the current right-wing Canadian government was sympathetic to complaints that you could get Al-Jazeera on cable here but not Fox News. This is a recent change – but bear also in mind that the same government wanted to repeal our anti-lying in the media law and would have if it weren’t for the popular uprising against it. However, that law did ultimately block the creation of a like-minded Canadian news channel (popularly labelled Fox News North).
You can read about it here: http://www.facebook.com/l.php?u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.huffingtonpost.com%2Frobert-f-kennedy-jr%2Ffox-news-will-not-be-moving-into-canada-after-all_b_829473.html&h=48b60
Just please ignore all the superlatives the reporter used. They’re embarrassing and just not true.
Of course, I use the term “uprising” very loosely, and probably inappropriately in that statement. Especially given recent world events.
extra tidbit – someone discussing this on the news today mentioned that US free speech practices/policies vs. other countries means that hate speech groups register URLs with hateful content in the US.
Those pages would not be protected or permitted elsewhere. So the stuff gets distributed further by putting it all online.
There’s also a special paragraph about the Holocaust, saying that anyone who denies it, trivializes it, or endorses it is guilty of ‘Volksverhetzung’. So in Germany Galliano would have committed a crime.
Endorsing extermination can’t reasonably be considered anything but a call for violence, and denying it is a lie (there is no way to honestly hold the opinion that it didn’t happen, short of outright delusion).
In a corollary to rodriguez’s hypothesis above, before the Nazis took power, there was nothing to prevent vocal opposition to them, and it did happen. So perhaps we (in the sense of western Europeans) don’t have as much faith in the ability of more speech to defeat hate speech.