“America is the center of personal and religious freedom. But America will disappear if we don’t follow the Constitution.” – John DeLorean
My sister, Debby, sent me a religious book, Vibrant Paradoxes by Robert Barron, an American Catholic Bishop. It was an easy read because most of the chapters are only two to three pages based on essays Bishop Barron has written over the years. Some of the essays I discovered to be very profound. A few were beyond my puny religious comprehension.
One of the most interesting chapters was about the church’s position on same sex marriage. In one passage, Barron paraphrases his mentor, Francis Cardinal George. Cardinal George “warned against the incursions of an increasingly aggressive secular state, which, he argued, will first force us off the public stage into privacy, and then seek to criminalize those practices of ours that they deem unacceptable.”
This wise prediction is coming true, and is happening right now. It not only involves the criminalizing of professing one’s faith, but also making it unlawful to speak on certain subjects that the elite deem to be unacceptable. In our country, pro-life advocates have been arrested for protesting in front of abortion clinics. (Although those who have vandalized and defaced the buildings of Pro-Life organizations are rarely investigated successfully.) During the last “Panic-demic”, church pastors and elders were arrested or cited for conducting services in violation of draconian, anti-First Amendment, government edicts.
On college campuses, students have been expelled or suspended for “hate speech”, like speaking against gay marriage or trans culture, even though they may be expressing their religious beliefs. Professors have been suspended or fired for the same reasons. Bakers, caterers and other service providers have been cited, fined and sued for refusing to provide their services for events that violate their religious tenets.
Perhaps our country is going the way of Canada, that has a country wide “hate speech” statute, in which violators can be charged criminally for espousing in word or print, what a prosecutor deems “hate speech”. The violators of this law can, if convicted, be fined and/or imprisoned. The worst part of this statute is that nowhere in it, is a definition of “hate speech”. Therefore, anything the government decides, can be hate speech. To compound this insult to Canadian intelligence, their highest courts have affirmed that this law needs no definition of the phrase, “hate crime”, claiming that it is already in the law.
Thankfully, the US Supreme Court is trending away from what the Canadian government is doing, and it should. Any definition of hate speech would be arbitrary. Any enactment of laws like those in Canada would violate our First Amendment rights to free speech, freedom of the press and freedom of religion. More importantly, even the most vile of so-called hate speech enables others to see and decide, if, or just how idiotic or asinine, the writer, speaker or broadcaster really is. By criminalizing “hate speech”, the government is also suppressing all speech, debate and the exchange of ideas.
2 Responses
Yes; yes and yes! Buz nails the government and Marxist led faculty led student movements ignoring and condemning our freedom of religion and speech.
I suggest most all of our collapsing systems that made America greatest in the world to two main causes. Greed and Communism. Greed has controlled party politics and Communism has entered and decimated most all organizations; altering their original culture and purpose.
Only a “clean up” of fraud elections across America will allow a recovery of the America built on Faith, Freedom and Family.
No, No & No, Buz is completely wrong. The government and universities are not full of Marxists and Communists trying to tear the country down. There are Americans who believe a more governmentcentric society would be better for all. These folks are opposed by the vast majority of Americans who recognize that people primarily need to be responsible for themselves. It has always been this way, there were violent labor strikes and violent strike busting activities going on 150 years ago. There will always be a Ying & Yang, it is what free societies do. The mere fact that Mr. Williams not only wrote that in the Prescott Enews, but he can also write that on Facebook posts all over the country and nobody can deny him that right, disproves his contention. So, let there be a free and public discourse. I will however agree that many colleges in the U.S. try to create safe zones on campus, where hurtful speech is limited, this will go by the wayside, because once these folks get out in the real world, no such safe zones exist. Just like in elementary school there will always be bullies, it is part of life, learning how to deal with those bullies makes us stronger. Have a great day!