Recently issues with depictions of Mohammed (PBUH) and the reactions – ranging from riots to murders – are back in the headlines. Historically, Salman Rushdie is still under death threats. The murder of Theo van Gogh, the 2005 riots and deaths over the Danish cartoon controversy and Geert Wilders’ movie ‘Fitna’ all fall into this group.

The most recent threats were triggered by the censorship of South Park by Comedy Central.

From the blog of the website that issued the threat:

“We have to warn Matt (Stone) and Trey (Parker) that what they are doing is stupid and they will probably wind up like Theo Van Gogh for airing this show,” said a post on RevolutionMuslim.com.

The website posted an accompaning graphic photo of the late Dutch filmmaker Van Gogh, who was killed in 2004 by an Islamic militant over a movie he made that accused Islam of condoning violence against women.

Also posted was link to a news article with details of a mansion in Colorado that Parker and Stone apparently own, suggesting they know where to find the South Park creators.

Younus Abdullah Muhammad, head of Revolution Muslim, said the post was not a threat.

“How is that a threat? Showing a case study right there of what happened to another individual who conducted himself in a very similar manner? It’s just evidence,” he told Reuters.

Muhammad said his group “didn’t tell anyone to go to their houses and conduct violence.”…

Therefore, as Muslims we do not define speech which has no place in a moral society as “free speech.”

— From The Revolution Muslim site, which should be at either http://revolutionmuslim.blogspot.com/ or http://revolutionmuslim.com/ but both seem to be erratically up and down (but was up for me long enough to grab the quotes) and also seems to revise itself often; yesterday they listed 33 posts in April; today they only list 31?

Reactions were consistent from both sides:

Matt Stone and Trey Parker have issued a statement:

In the 14 years we’ve been doing South Park we have never done a show that we couldn’t stand behind. We delivered our version of the show to Comedy Central and they made a determination to alter the episode. It wasn’t some meta-joke on our part. Comedy Central added the bleeps. In fact, Kyle’s customary final speech was about intimidation and fear. It didn’t mention Muhammad at all but it got bleeped too. We’ll be back next week with a whole new show about something completely different and we’ll see what happens to it.”
— From HuffPo’s
South Park’s Depiction Of Muhammad Censored AGAIN

Freedom of speech is at stake here, don’t you all see? If anything, we should all make cartoons of Mohammed and show the terrorists and the extremists that we are all united in the belief that every person has a right to say what they want. Look people, it’s been really easy for us to stand up for free speech lately. For the past few decades, we haven’t had to risk anything to defend it. One of those times is right now. And if we aren’t willing to risk what we have now, then we just believe in free speech, but won’t defend it.
— From Michelle Malkin’s South Park And Cartoon Jihad

Finally, in reaction, there is a movement to make May 20 ‘Everybody Draw Mohammed Day’. Regardless of the actual participation in ‘Everybody Draw Mohammed Day’, I’m sure the extremist Muslim community will threaten even more violence and reprisals, all in the name of protecting their religion. I’m also sure the moderate Muslim community will remain invisibly and quiet in the background. It’s this latter silence which provokes my anger at the moderate Muslims. All religions have their extremists, but in the majority the moderates stand out as a voice of reason. I haven’t seen this happen broadly yet in the Muslim community. I remember, for example, during The Troubles in Northern Ireland both the Catholic and Protestant churches railed against the violence.

So a few question for you, my gentle readers.

1. Will you participate in ‘Everybody Draw Mohammed Day’ on 20 May? Why or Why Not?
2. What’s your opinion of the Muslim extremists who riot and kill, claiming their religion demands capital punishment for anyone who defiles the Prophet?
3. What’s your opinion of the Mulsim moderates who stay quiet?
4. Are there any circumstances where you believe disrespect towards your personal religion justifies you (or another member of your religion) to assault and/or murder the offending parties?

In my last column I mentioned Freedom of Speech as a future topic. Here it is.

This right has always been a thorny one. But, as Americans, we tend to frequently take it for granted, usually only reviving it when the KKK or a neo-Nazi group decides to march (or someone burns an American flag).

What’s threatening it? And what should we be mindful of? And yes, I’ll get to the pagan parts by the end.

The First Amendment and Its Limitations

A bit of background. The right originally only applied to the government. Frequently people will be muzzled by a business or each other and cry foul; the right typically only applies to the government (originally only the Federal Government, but later extended through the 14th amendment to include state and local governments). In some cases it has been extended and/or limited in ‘public’ private areas (compare Pruneyard Shopping Center v. Robins and Free Speech Zones).

Yet no right is an absolute – the classic case of “you cannot falsely cry ‘fire’ in a crowded theatre”. Where it gets sticker is what are ‘legitimate’ reasons to muzzle free speech. Your opinion will vary.

A perfect example is the current case between Albert Snyder and the Westboro Baptist Church. Westboro pickets the funerals of our fallen soldiers with deliberate hate signs (such as “Thank God for Dead Soldiers”). In an amazing show of solidarity (purely unintentional, I’m sure), both HuffPost and Ann Coulter have articles on this case. I find myself torn on this one, personally. Is it clearly a case of IIED (see Coulter) or, since they cleared it with police beforehand and stayed in their specific ‘free speech zone’, acceptable First Amendment speech?

US vs Elsewhere

It gets even more interesting when you head out of the US. Large parts of the rest of the world – including First World democracies – don’t hold to our view of freedom of speech.

Compare the US First Amendment:

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.

with the European Convention on Human Rights:

Everyone has the right to freedom of expression. This right shall include freedom to hold opinions and to receive and impart information and ideas without interference by public authority and regardless of frontiers. This article shall not prevent States from requiring the licensing of broadcasting, television or cinema enterprises…

The exercise of these freedoms, since it carries with it duties and responsibilities, may be subject to such formalities, conditions, restrictions or penalties as are prescribed by law and are necessary in a democratic society, in the interests of national security, territorial integrity or public safety, for the prevention of disorder or crime, for the protection of health or morals, for the protection of the reputation or the rights of others, for preventing the disclosure of information received in confidence, or for maintaining the authority and impartiality of the judiciary.

That’s a awful lot of qualifications for a ‘right’.

Rising Questions

The UN has had resolutions (see here and here) which continue to be brought forth which outlaws speech which a religious group finds ‘offensive’. Sound benign? Think about issues such as Theo van Gogh, the Danish cartoon controversy and Geert Wilders’ movie ‘Fitna’ (see here if you’re not familiar with the general discussion on the last).

From a statement made by the Deputy Secretary General of the Council of Europe:

“The European Court of Human Rights has, in the past, endorsed restrictions to the freedom of expression in order to protect religious beliefs against gratuitous insult… Furthermore, freedom of expression should not be considered a licence to offend.

There are some reasonable voices in Europe; see The Economist, for example, “The meaning of freedom: Why freedom of speech must include the right to “defame” religions” in April 2009 and The limits of freedom and faith: Opponents of a bid by Muslim states to “protect religion” claim a small success.

But overall world-wide there seems to be a feeling that what we consider as a basic right should be constrained by whatever limitations the national legislatures feels are appropriate at the time. The NY Times discussed this in Unlike Others, U.S. Defends Freedom to Offend in Speech..

US Historical Context

How does this apply? Surely it couldn’t happen here!

We periodically have Free Speech controversies.

Porn, for example, See Charles Rembar’s The End of Obscenity: The Trials of Lady Chatterley, Tropic of Cancer and Fanny Hill or, more recently, the issues with the Communications Decency Act of 1996 which led to the Reno vs. ACLU SCOTUS decision and the Child Online Protection Act regarding the regulation of porn.

And see the ‘hate speech’ discussion from the NY Times quoted above.

But there are frequent rumblings from both camps (when it suits their purpose). Calls from the right to try for treason people who objected to the ongoing War on Terror. The recent Coulter-Canada incident (sorry, Canadian reference). Calls from the left to prosecute people who might have used epithets at CongressCritters. The infamous SMU Bake Sale.

Scenarios

So if the current trend towards regulating Freedom of Speech and limiting ‘hate speech’ continues, where might it end? How about three possible worst-case scenarios?

Assume we end up with legislation banning ‘hate speech’, especially against a religion. Sounds great – no more defamation of Pagan religions, right?

The two scenarios involving Abrahamic religions we can (hopefully) all agree on:

• A right-wing administration uses it to muzzle discussions and condemnations of extremist Christian actions.
• A left-wing administration uses it to muzzle discussions and condemnations of extremist Islamist actions (as is already happening in Europe).

The extra scenario we might not have seen coming (I promised I’d bring it back to Pagan by the end):

In the middle of a witch war it gets invoked by one side or the other. If Freedom of Speech is limited by not ‘insulting’ a religion, then how many of the my-trad-is-better-than-your-trad witch wars could end up here? Can you imagine Witch Wars moving into Federal court? And the can of worms that would open? Also according to the First Amendment, the judge would (probably) have to assume that the speech claimed to be ‘insulting’ to the ‘religion’ was, since they prefer not to rule on either whether the religion is ‘legitimate’ or not or what constitutes ‘legitimate’ beliefs, practices, or membership (and therefore, what is insulting to that ‘religion’). The recent case in Britain when judges had to legally determine and rule on whether a person was a member of a religion or not comes to mind.

Sound far-fetched? It is. But something worth thinking about, and worth keeping up on.

IMHO, It’s far better to have to listen to someone insult you than for everyone to be muzzled. Unless it creates an imminent lawless action (the SCOTUS example being the ‘fire in the theatre’ example I quoted above) it should be allowed. I am a firm believer that by perhaps what some people would deem to be over-allowing Freedom of Speech, you end up with ideas being tested in the crucible of open discussion and public debate. Although perhaps harsh, crap speech and ideas tend to rather quickly die off or to be marginalized (no, crypto-conspiracies never die on the Internet, but they can be marginalized to the point the vast majority of people ignore or belittle them).