“Free Speech” Does not Equal Bullying and Intimidation

"Seven hundred adult Christians teaming up to shout a couple of queer kids and their friends into silence just isn't news in this country."

I've seen so many abuses lately of people crying "free speech!" when called on their violent, sexist, racist actions or apologism of he same that I decided to write a free speech primer.

"Free Speech" is a short phrase which references the longer First Amendment to the U.S. Consitution:

"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."

This is now popularly construed to mean "I can say whatever I want where ever I want!" But this is NOT what the amendment says, nor has this EVER been how it is legally interpreted.

You cannot threaten to kill someone and get away with it because you claim that imposes on your free speech.

You cannot publish known lies about someone and get away with it because you say this is free speech.

You cannot incite a riot using only words and not get in trouble because you are "exercising free speech".

And these things only refer to the public sphere. Private and semi-public spaces are allowed more latitude to say what types of speech are allowable.

If you walked into a church wearing an obscene t-shirt you would be asked to leave.

If you walk into a mall with an obscene t-shirt you will be forced to leave.

I see more and more ridiculous uses of those trying to use the "free speech" excuse to get away with obnoxious behavior online lately. The stupidest one, and one which I see over and over, is that of people whining that they were banned or their post or comment was deleted from a livejournal community or even someone's personal journal, or their account was suspended. No – nobody on Livejournal is compelled by law to let you say whatever you want in a space they maintain. Nor is Livejournal compelled to allow anyone who makes an account to say anything they want. They specifically state this in their terms and conditions. This is not an offense against the First Amendment. Livejournal is not Congress, nor is it a state government (to whom that restriction on Congress usually extends).

Then I see all the people claiming a college which will not allow fundies to bully and harass other sudents is unfairly restricting people's "free speech" or religion. No. Harassment and bullying of other students is not protected free speech. Refusing to allow harrassment and bullying is not anti-Christian bigotry. There are more rights and protections extended to people than just those of the first amendment. The 14th amendment, for example, provides an equal protection clause, which has been interpreted to mean, among other things, that students attending a state funded university are guaranteed to be treated equally. This can mean that the college does not allow harassment of blacks, women, gays and lebians, or transgendered students, AS WELL AS Christians; this can mean the college will not fund or allow use of its property and equipment to publish a newspaper that prints derogatory things against certain religions or races in an attmept to intimidate them; this can mean a college will not recognize a sudent run organization which discriminates against blacks or gays or women. The Christian fundies are very clever in trying to twist this issue their own way so that it seems as though they are being discriminated against – but they also deliberately obfuscate the fact that these laws protect them as well. There are no officially represented campus groups that have a "no Christians allowed" policy, for example – rallies on campus declaring Christians to be demons or sick freaks are also prohibited – and so on. A college or university exists for educational purposes – generally, they do not allow activity that disrupts the learning process or intimidates other students. "Tolerance" policies became necessary because so many people were abusing and harassing and trying to intimidate classes of students they dislike. Universites also exist for the use of the students and faculty – it is not an abrogation of Brother Jed's rights to say if he feels he must come to campus and scream at the students, that he must stand in a Free Speech Zone. There is no reason he should be allowed to wander the entire campus calling the female students "whores". This isn't an offense against his free speech. He has plenty of space in which he can say these things – his church, his extensive website, he could form a public rally in any public space in town and do this. He doesn't need to be allowed to disrupt a college's educational efforts in order to proclaim his message that women receiving an education are all whores.

These Christians who are all upset because they aren't allowed to insult, intimidate, harass, and threaten with eternal punishment all students who belong to a class of people they don't like aren't being preveted from practicing their religion or free speech. They can still go to church and scream that gays are going to hell. They can have a public revival in which they scream gays are going to hell. They can publish a private newspaper with their own money in which they present their belief that gays are going to hell. They just aren't allowed to intimidate gay people on campus.

Nor are people of other religions free to do things which contradict the state's laws. Satanists may not have a human sacrifice, those following a path of Natvie American spirituality are not allowed to take peyote (although I hink there is some limited circumstance in which they allow that now), some mythical religion I just made up right now which would have as its central sacrament stealing from others would not be able to get it's practitioners out of jail free just because it was their religion to steal.

Now, you may argue that any of these things are MORALLY or ETHICALLY unfair constraints on someone's freedom of speech – but they are not LEGALLY unfair constraints. No one is ever going to be happy with any of the legal compromises that have to be made when you have so many people in such a diverse country routinely interacting with each other. But just because you don't like the compromise made between allowing free speech and protecting students from being harassed by vicious brainwashed fundies while they are trying to study and learn doesn't mean it is illegal. You can argue about a slippery slope or that you'd rather they be allowed to say what they want so you know who they are or whatever. But it still doesn't make it illegal to tell them they can't deliberately cause an upset which will disrupt the school.

Furthermore, it is a deliberate obfuscation of the First Amendment to say it covers porn.  To start with the most obvious example, child pornographers try to frame the filth the peddle as protested "speech", but as one of my favorite authors, Andrew Vachss points out, this is not "speech" – it is the photographic evidence of a CRIME.  "Oh, but what if it is adults in the pictures, then it's okay, right?"  Pornographers have deliberately made this line as blurry as possible – something not hard to do in a rape culture where adult men gang-raping an unconcious underage girl for their camcorder is excused by saying "Oh, she wanted it" and gets classified as "porn", not as evidence of rape, and Linda Lovelace was not believed when she said she was coerced into filming "Deep Throat".  On Kazaa one can download free rape porn from all over the world, uploaded by anyone for free copy by anyone.  There is no way to know if these are films of actual rape or not.  How does anyone know any porn is consensual when women are never believed when they say it was not?  Is rape gauged by whether or not the victim had money thrown at her afterwards?  If men pay a 16 year old girl a thousand bucks to rape her and film their crime, is the resulting film "free expression"?  I think not.

 The final insult is that these abusers of the First Amendment, in their ridiculous, constant assertions that they, the majority and the majority of those in power at all levels of society and government, do their very best to drown out all forms of speech that criticize them.  Thus I witnessed about 70 comments, many condescending or insulting, all *coincidentally* ha ha by outraged white men, flaming my girlfriend for daring to make a very short post about privilege in her journal.  The levels of hypocrisy reach massive heights, one of my favorites being when these pretend-progressive white men explain that someone who is offended by a racist, sexist joke is too thin skinned and if they see something they don't want to read why don't they just stop reading it?  Yet they themselves are so thin-skinned they can't stand to ever see anyone suggest they might be privileged, can't stand to see anyone question their oh-so-sacred pornography, can't stand to see anyone question whether 700 adult Christians stamping out a tiny student organization for gay rights might be lying when they say Christians are being discriminated against when they are required to be polite to other students and staff when they are all at the same school.  They must drown out everything they see a feminist say (or an anti-racism activist, or a gay rights activist) in the name of FREE SPEECH!

Then they say I am hostile and unreasonable when I cry bullshit.

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