The situation: At a protest, a 10-year-old boy stands on a U.S. flag. His mother is then charged with negligent child abuse, contributing to the delinquency of a minor, flag mutilation, and disturbing the peace.
Of course, any card-carrying liberal would be up in arms with cries of, "Free speech!" But what if that charged mother is Shirley Phelps-Roper, daughter of Fred Phelps, founder of the Westboro Baptist Church -- you know, the church that stages protests at military funerals because soldiers' deaths are America's punishment from God for accepting homosexuals.
This is yet another test of our ability to really and truly support free speech. "I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it," right? (Well, I won't sacrifice my life for those nutjobs, but I will write a blog post about them.) The ACLU is set to defend Phelps-Roper, as well they should. When we pick and choose which free speech to defend, we will slowly but surely lose all free speech.
News story found at Fark.com.
5 comments:
Good point. I am one of the few in my fairly conservative circle to firmly believe that defacing the flag is and should always be a form of free speech protected by the Constitution. BTW mist conservatives loathe the Westboro crowd. They distort even the most Fundie if Fundamentalist points of view. Complete nutjobs
Yes, if you are going to have a "value" then that value shouldn't apply to only those in your political party. Free speech is free speech.
It is really hard to take at times, but Voltaire was right.
Free speach means you ARE NOT protected from being offended.
The last time we were in Sam's Club I saw a cheep little American flag-on-a-stick on the floor that people were rolling their carts over. Heaven help us, where were the flag police?
As long as there is no law against it, it is freedom of speech.
I abolutely agree with Kelly.
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