Hate speech and the Constitution
If he contributes nothing else to society, the infamous Fred Phelps has at least forced us to further examine the notion of free speech. At what point does offensive expression become punishable under the law?
Phelps is the leader of the Westboro Baptist Church, which has gained notoriety over the past decade as a result of its practice of protesting military funerals with signs that read “Thank God for IEDs,” “Thank God for Dead Soldiers,” and of course “God Hates Fags.” The group believes that our losses in the War on Terror (along with the suffering from Hurricane Katrina and from the economic recession) are part of God’s punishment for our tolerating homosexuality.
The Supreme Court will now hear Snyder v. Phelps, in which the family of a deceased Marine has sued for damages after Phelps et al showed up en force at their son’s funeral. Most Americans would universally and absolutely condemn the church’s actions. But should they be illegal? If the Court sides against Phelps, would that not open the door to further litigation and regulation of “unsavory” speech?
Truly, one of the law’s most difficult conundrums.
-Colin
Fish on the First, Continued
Stanley Fish followed up on his original explanation of the Supreme Court’s decision in Citizens United v. FEC with an examination of three contentious First Amendment questions: Does money equal speech? Should corporations share our rights as citizens? And, where’s the line between (free) speech and (punishable) action?
Fish does little to provide answers to a frustratingly confused public. The bewildering ridiculousness of First Amendment jurisprudence is at once infuriating and beautiful, apparently…
[I]t’s an act of prestidigitation, a magical sleight of hand, a game whose rules are continually changing, a discourse that can reach any conclusion at all including one you would have thought impossible. It hasn’t got a principled leg to stand on, and yet it keeps moving forward and producing real world consequences. In short, it is an absolutely marvelous achievement, something to be admired as a wonder even when you are distressed by the content of what it has just produced.
-Colin
Is having a child a right?
Ian Murray over at The Conrer has an interesting post on whether having a child is a right or, as one British MP asserts, a privilege. The discussion stems from a Sun article in which 59-year old Sue Tollefson tells the paper that she plans to use In vitro fertilisation (IVF) to have a baby. The MP, Tom Harris, contends that the state should be able to ban IVF at that age because “of course 60 is too old to become a mum.” Harris argument is actually quite interesting:
I agree that it’s not fair that some women who desperately want to have children reach the age when they can collect their pension but still haven’t achieved that ambition. But what’s even more unfair is knowing that a child is born with the near certainty of being left motherless before it reaches its teens, or will spend their formative years as a carer. Children are not lifestyle choices. They’re not possessions to be added to our collections of material wealth as we grow older: first car (used), first flat, first house, second car (new), baby, bigger house… Children are precious for their own sake. The happiness and fulfilment they offer to their parents is secondary.
As for Ian Murray at The Corner, he argues that there exists a right to have a child: “Now I’m not one for long lists of positive rights, much preferring short lists of negative rights, [ ] it says something that every statement of human rights since the 1948 U.N. declaration includes the right to marry and found a family.” I can imagine, though, that some of his colleagues will take an opposite position. For faced with a common conservative dilemma — what to do when rights conflict with religious belief — many will see IVF as unnatural and, thus, immoral in itself.
-Marc
Justice? Yes, but at what cost?
How far must society go to accommodate the blind?
Driving around DC this weekend, I noticed for the first time signs along one street that read “Blind Child.” Intrigued, I did some research and discovered that that many states will, if requested, post street signs around the houses of deaf and blind children alerting drivers to be extra cautious. Such signs are a relatively inexpensive way society can help increase the safety of children for whom circumstance has unfairly made dangerous the most basic of activities.
The signs got me thinking. What else could society do to help eliminate some of the unequal consequences of blindness? Read more
1984 at the airport?
And I don’t mean TWA and hot pants.
Since Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab’s failed terror attempt, airport screening methods have been criticised and scrutinized. This article outlines some innovations that could be added to current procedures. There are a number of moral issues lurking beneath the surface.
The first innovation, a “mind reader,” was developed by WeCU (”we see you”) technologies and involves projecting images onto airport screens that a would-be terrorist would likely recognize. The technology relies mostly upon hidden cameras and sensors that detect signs that a person recognizes the image.
“Belief” in climate change
A judge in the U.K. has ruled that belief in global warming is protected under the 2003 “Religion and Belief Regulations,” which prohibit employment discrimination based on such beliefs. Tim Nicholson, a former “Head of Sustainability” at a British property firm, claimed that his termination resulted from disagreements about his environmental stances.
Lawyers for the firm argued that belief in climate change is “a scientific view rather than a philosophical one”, because “philosophy deals with matters that are not capable of scientific proof.” Nicholson calls his approach “a philosophical belief that reflects my moral and ethical values and is underlined by the overwhelming scientific evidence.”
Confused? You should be. Determining what qualifies a personal “philosophy” or “belief” for protection under freedom of conscience regulations - particularly when such regulations are framed with respect to religion - is a difficult, if not impossible task.
-Colin
Ivy League vs. armed forces
Should elite universities welcome the military back?
Some of our top academic institutions have refused to allow military recruiters on campus or sponsor R.O.T.C. programs since the 1960s, during the height of the anti-war movement. Harvard and Yale students interested in R.O.T.C. must trek to other campuses to take part, and enrollment is almost nonexistent.
Born out of anti-war sentiment, these policies are now defended on the basis of the military’s “Don’t Ask Don’t Tell” policy toward homosexuals. A letter of protest against on-campus recruiting from the faculty of Columbia University Law School makes the case:
This recruitment directly violates the Law School’s longstanding non-discrimination policy, which forbids employers from recruiting on our campus if they discriminate based on, inter alia, sexual orientation. Under the “don’t ask, don’t tell” law, which bars openly lesbian, gay and bisexual individuals from military service, military employers discriminate explicitly based on sexual orientation.
Supporters of campus recruitment have accused schools like Columbia of hypocrisy. These institutions accept scholarship money from the military for soldiers-turned-students, and often house national security programs that serve mostly mid-career military officers. Why tolerate the military sometimes but not all of the time? Read more
Is it unfair to televise an Obama speech?
Politicians and Free Media
Last Wednesday President Obama delivered his second speech to a joint session of Congress. The speech marked the fifth time since coming to office that the White House has ask TV networks to cover the President speaking during primetime (as a comparison, President George W. Bush addressed the nation during primetime only four times during his eight years in office).
Primetime is, well, the prime time to catch viewers. Some 32 million viewers watched the President’s health care speech. It is also the most lucrative period for TV networks, a fact that makes the hour-long, commercial-free broadcast a significant imposition. Of course, the TV networks need not air the President just because he requested it. FOX showed the season premiere of “So You Think You Can Dance” last week, the third time the network chose not to broadcast a primetime appearance by President Obama. But every other major networked and all the cable news stations, out of patriotic duty or respect for the office of the President, continue to televise President Obama’s prime time speeches and news conferences.
There are numerous normative issues here, including the interrelated ones of the responsibility of TV networks to air the President and whether the President can abuse the privilege of his office in repeatedly asking the networks to broadcast him in prime time. I want to briefly investigate a different question: is it unfairly unequal to televise the prime time addresses and press conferences of the President but not those of the other Party’s major figures? Read more
Should Congress pass an airline passengers’ bill of rights?
Government and the market
We’ve all heard the horror stories of passengers stranded on planes for hours on end. On Friday night, a Continental flight from Houston to Minneapolis/St. Paul was diverted to Rochester due to thunderstorms. The airline kept passengers stranded on the tiny commuter plane all night, before finally letting them disembark at 6:30am. The fiasco has re-raised public calls for Congress to pass an Airline Passengers’ Bill of Rights, an effort supported by consumer organizations like the Coalition for an Airline Passengers’ Bill of Rights and FlyersRights.
Several years ago my significant other was the victim of JetBlue mistreatment, so I can certainly sympathize with the impulse. But is there a normative case to be made for government interference in this market? Read more
Money talks
The debate over campaign finance reform
On Monday, the Democratic National Committee filed a brief with the Supreme Court, arguing that overhauling the campaign finance system could “stifle the type of small donations that helped power Barack Obama to victory in last Novembers election.” The DNC’s brief was in response to the Supreme Court’s decision to review whether some of the campaign finance restrictions imposed by the 2002 McCain-Feingold Bill are unconstitutional. Read more
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