In the wake of the Duck Dynasty dust-up, the Chik-Fil-A controversy and other events triggering “right to free speech” debates, we get this report from Huffington Post:
In the new survey, 45 percent of Americans said the First Amendment does not allow people to be fired from a job for expressing their views, while only 36 percent said such firings are allowed under the Constitution. Twenty percent said they weren’t sure.
Answers to other questions in the poll were equally depressing. The article’s provocative title was “Do You Know More About the First Amendment than Sarah Palin?”–and when the answer to that is “no,” you’ve really hit bottom.
The dismal poll results remind me of the young man who called the ACLU, back when I was Executive Director, and demanded that we sue White Castle for denying him his First Amendment rights. They’d refused to hire him, apparently because he was so heavily tattooed they found it unappetizing. I still remember him insisting “I have a right to free expression!” As I tried to explain, yes, and so does White Castle.
If the City of Indianapolis–or any unit of government–passes a law forbidding you from tattooing your body, then you’ve got yourself a genuine, real-life, rootin’ tootin’ constitutional challenge. When White Castle disapproves, you don’t.
If the government told A & E that it couldn’t suspend Mr. Homophobic Duck Guy, it would be violating A & E’s rights. If a local government refused to zone a Chik-fil-A because its owner is a homophobic jerk, it would violate Chik-fil-A’s rights. (Annoying as it may seem, jerks have constitutional rights too.)
Listen up, Americans! The Bill of Rights restricts what government can do. And one of the things government can’t do is protect you from being fired for shooting off your mouth.
Here in Indiana, we’re used to religious warfare. We aren’t called the buckle of the bible belt for nothing.
Those battles generally pit people who understand religious liberty to require state neutrality in matters of belief against folks who want government to make everyone live in accordance with the “correct” beliefs (which just happen to be theirs).
That, in a nutshell (no pun intended) is what the current fight about HJR 3 is all about. Proponents can pontificate all they want about what’s best for children or society, but opposition to same-sex marriage (and the desire to send a message to GLBT folks that they really aren’t welcome here) is entirely based upon religious dogma.
Given the visibility and mean-spiritedness of so many self-identified “Godly” people, we sometimes forget that plenty of religious believers “get it.” They not only understand their God to require love and inclusion, but they also–importantly–recognize the threat to authentic belief posed by those who would use government to impose their doctrines on others.
Matt Boulton is President of Christian Theological Seminary. He testified at the legislative hearing against HJR 3, and although he made many other good points, his compelling closing observation deserves to be widely shared:
Now, my position as president of CTS puts me in relationship with a dazzling variety of Indiana religions and denominations and congregations and theological points of view. Indeed, questions of human sexuality are matters of passionate debate within Christian circles; we have a good dose of that diversity at CTS.
You’ll hear later today from the other side that civil unions would threaten the “traditional view of marriage” allegedly demanded by Christian faith, and so on. I respect that perspective, even as I disagree with it. But here’s the point I want to underline: despite what those on the other side may say, there is no one Christian view of HJR-3. Many Christians, even those who disagree on the underlying human sexuality issues, oppose HJR-3 because their Christian faith calls them to be open, hospitable, fair, and loving toward their neighbors. And the role of the State, we respectfully suggest, is not to take sides in this theological debate, much less enshrine one side or the other in the Indiana state constitution. Rather, the State’s role is to respect the religious diversity of our community on this question, and to allow freedom of religion – faith’s freedom – to flourish in Indiana by setting aside HJR-3 once and for all. (Emphasis supplied)
Every so often, even well-meaning people will pooh-pooh the notion of “white privilege.” Most of us who enjoy that privilege fail to recognize how it works, both for us and for those who don’t benefit from the unspoken assumptions evoked by white skin.
What made me think about the subject was an email I received the other day from a (white) friend. She wrote
I’m currently reading “Ted Koppel Off Camera” a book of his daily journal of news and personal observations from 1999. In it, he says he read a statistic that was so incredible he didn’t believe it – that 8 of 10 blacks had spent time behind bars. That includes people held for short times in jail and released for lack of evidence or wrongful arrest, but nevertheless, he was incredulous. So he asked 5 blacks with whom he worked if they had ever been arrested and spent time behind bars, and every one of them had -one repeatedly for driving a new car which police didn’t think a black man should be driving.
Her email reminded me of my own dumbfounded reaction several years ago, when I was part of a small group that later became the much-larger Race Relations Network of the Greater Indianapolis Progress Committee. There were approximately 20 of us in that early group, about half and half white and black. Most were professionals, or highly-educated executives with local companies or organizations.
For some reason, the discussion turned to speed limits, and someone asked “How many of you have been stopped for speeding?” All of us raised our hands. The next question was more pointed. “When you were stopped, how many of you were asked ‘Can I search your vehicle'”? Every black hand went up; no white ones did.
A 2012 research paper by the Mexican Competitiveness Institute in Mexico called ‘If Our Neighbours Legalise’, said that the legalisation of marijuana in Colorado, Washington and California would depress cartel profits by as much as 30 per cent. A 2010 Rand Corp study of what would happen if just California legalised suggests a more modest fall-out. Using consumption in the US as the most useful measure, its authors posit that marijuana accounts for perhaps 25 per cent of the cartels’ revenues. The cartels would survive losing that, but still. “That’s enough to hurt, enough to cause massive unemployment in the illicit drugs sector,” says [fellow at the Mexico Institute at the Wilson Center David] Shirk. Less money for cartels means weaker cartels and less capacity to corrupt the judiciary and the police in Mexico with crumpled bills in brown envelopes. Crimes like extortion and kidnappings are also more easily tackled. …
Mr Shirk puts it this way. If you ask enforcement folk how large a dent their interdiction efforts – seizures, arrests, helicopter raids and so on – actually have on cartel earnings, they will say between 5 and 10 per cent. But just a few states embracing legal cannabis may end up robbing them of two to five times that amount.
In other words, when you reduce demand for an illegal product–in this case, by offering a legal alternative–you reduce illegal behavior associated with the marketing of that product.
Since cannabis is less harmful than alcohol or tobacco, regulating its sale and taxing it–rather than criminalizing its use– would appear to be a win-win.
Several years ago, my eldest granddaughter–then 13– interrupted a lively dinner discussion by our extended family, saying “Stop it! Just stop it! All this family talks about is politics and I’m sick of it!” I apologized and said we’d talk about anything she wanted. What did she want to discuss? “School uniforms. I don’t think we should have to wear uniforms.”
Not long after 9-11, when our daughter was still on IPS’ School Board, she and my lawyer son disagreed about encouraging schoolchildren to recite the Pledge. He cited Barnette v. Board of School Commissioners of West Virginia; her Christmas gift to him that year was The Story of Our Flag.
And so it goes–at least in our family.
Most recently, my two younger sons have been arguing about Edward Snowden. On Facebook, my (very liberal and idealistic) middle son approvingly posted the New York Times editorial arguing that Snowden should get clemency; his brother (the lawyer) shot back with Fred Kaplan’s article for Salon, Why Snowden Won’t (and Shouldn’t) Get Clemency. That led to a spirited exchange, to put it mildly.
Each one called and tried to get me to weigh in on his side.
In other families, I am told, children call their mothers (when they do) to ask for money, or to report on life events, or even to ask advice. Mine call to talk politics and argue policy.
For what it’s worth, I agree with my lawyer son on this one. As Kaplan–like me, a foe of NSA domestic spying– notes in his article, had Snowden only disclosed information about domestic surveillance, leniency might be appropriate. But he did much more than that. He disclosed information having nothing to do with domestic spying, or even spying on our allies. He disclosed information about intelligence gathering practices that are not “illegal, immoral or improper”–information useful to the Taliban and Iran, among others.
Kaplan quotes Snowden telling the South China Morning Post that he took his job with the express intention of gaining access to NSA information–rebutting the assumption that what he learned on the job so distressed him that he decided to broadcast what he’d found. He only stayed on the job for three months– just long enough to get what he’d come for. (He also lied to some 25 co-workers, telling them he needed their logons and passwords as part of his system administrator duties. Predictably, those co-workers were subsequently fired.)
There were also his glowing remarks about the “commitment to human rights” shown by Russia, Venezuela, Bolivia and Ecuador, his praise of Hong Kong’s devotion to freedom of speech, and his expressed intent to share the pilfered documents with “every country where the NSA had operated.”
Someone who really wanted to shine a light on government misconduct–to engage in the time-honored tactic of civil disobedience–would not have taken refuge in countries whose interests are inimical to ours. He would have stayed in the U.S., made his case, and accepted the consequences of his actions.
Had Snowden limited his disclosures to the NSA’s clearly unlawful domestic activities, had he remained in the U.S. to argue that his actions were in service of the Constitution and Rule of Law, he would be a whistleblower entitled to our consideration.
Bradley Manning was a whistleblower. Snowden is not, and the fact that his disclosures will end up doing some collateral good really doesn’t change that.
My lawyer son’s analogy is apt: if someone goes on a shooting spree and kills two innocent people and one murderous son-of-a-bitch, the fact that he rid the town of the SOB doesn’t excuse the murder of the other two.
I hate taking sides when my kids have an argument, but sometimes, it’s unavoidable. At least they aren’t arguing about who Mom loves best…
