Oakland has banned a group of African-American Christian women from accessing a government e-mail and message board system because it considers them bigoted and interested in conducting hate speech. While the same systems regularly carry political statements from gay-rights groups, the city has banned the women because of the loaded language in their communications — words such as marriage and natural family. George Will explains:
Marriage is the foundation of the natural family and sustains family values. That sentence is inflammatory, perhaps even a hate crime.
At least it is in Oakland, Calif. That city’s government says those words, italicized here, constitute something akin to hate speech and can be proscribed from the government’s open e-mail system and employee bulletin board. …
Some African American Christian women working for Oakland’s government organized the Good News Employee Association (GNEA), which they announced with a flier describing their group as “a forum for people of Faith to express their views on the contemporary issues of the day. With respect for the Natural Family, Marriage and Family Values.”
The flier was distributed after other employees’ groups, including those advocating gay rights, had advertised their political views and activities on the city’s e-mail system and bulletin board. When the GNEA asked for equal opportunity to communicate by that system and that board, it was denied. Furthermore, the flier they posted was taken down and destroyed by city officials, who declared it “homophobic” and disruptive.
The city government said the flier was “determined” to promote harassment based on sexual orientation. The city warned that the flier and communications like it could result in disciplinary action “up to and including termination.”
Gee, I wonder how that happened? It couldn’t be that our high degree of sensitivity has caused us to treat dissent as a crime, and act hysterically when offended, could it?
Of course it did. We have been marching down this road for several years now, starting with campus speech codes in the 1980s to campaign-finance reform and hate crimes legislation that makes motive a worse offense than the actual crime itself. Free speech used to have more defenders than attackers, but not any more. And once we decided that the content of speech should get evaluated and suppressed if found wanting, it has opened the door to greater expansion of thought-police activities.
In this case, the thought police got a large boost from the joke of the appellate courts, the Ninth Circuit. Amazingly, they determined that the GNEA’s “vanishingly small” speech interest wasn’t worth protecting. They approved of non-neutral content exclusions by a government agency that allows them to approve certain political speech while excluding others — setting up Oakland’s government as an arbiter of acceptable political beliefs.
Expect the Supreme Court to pin their collective ears back on appeal. Oakland could have avoided the entire issue by forbidding any use of their systems for anything other than job-related communications. Failing that, they have to show how using the terms marriage and natural family present any kind of threat to anyone in the workplace. They obviously cannot, but they apparently want to ban both concepts from the workings of the city anyway.
We have entered a dangerous stage for free speech. It’s fine to take offense at speechm, and to protest it when we do. Commercial actions such as boycotts work within the free speech market, although some may be overwrought. Demanding government interaction to silence groups like the GNEA, P-FLAG, NRA, NARAL, and so on is a demand for an end to free speech. If the Ninth Circuit can’t figure that out, then thank God for the Supreme Court.
The thought police in action on the British Front.
DEMANDS for a ban on “un-Islamic” activities in schools will be set out by the Muslim Council of Britain today.
Targets include playground games, swimming lessons, school plays, parents’ evenings and even vaccinations.
And the calls for all children to be taught in Taliban-style conditions will be launched with the help of a senior Government education adviser.
Michelle Malkin has another prime example.
I just read this yesterday in “Capitalism and Freedom” by Milton Friedman:
“Is it not absurd, one might say, to have a standard proscription of interference with free speech? Why not take up the case separately and treat it on it’s own merits…One man wants to stand up on a street corner and advocate birth control; another, communism; at third vegetarianism, and so on, ad infinitum. Why not enact a law affirming or denying to each the right to spread his particular views? Or alternatively, why not give the power to decide the issue to an administrative agency? It is immediately clear that if we were to take each case up as it came, a majority would almost surely vote to deny free speech in most cases and perhaps in every case taken separately…each person feels much more strongly about being deprived of his right to free speech when he is in a minority than he feels about depriving somebody else of the right to free speech when he is in the majority. In consequence, when he votes on the bundle as a whole, he gives much more weight to the infrequent denial of free speech to himself when he is in the minority than to the frequent denial of free speech to others.”
This book is like fine wine, and I can’t wait to finish it so that I can give it to my friends to read. Maybe we could buy a copy for the 9th Circuit?
Just another example of “Free Speech for me, but not for thee.”
Capt’n: “Free Speech” is only allowed, when it is directed by the Leftist Nutbags, towards everyone else who disagrees with them.
The one group in this country, that is not willing to FIGHT for “free speech”, nor shed blood for it like all the members of the military, past, present, and future, and the Leftist Nutbags are “winning” because of “Political Correctness”.
Un-freaking-believeable!
Capt’n: “Free Speech” is only allowed, when it is directed by the Leftist Nutbags, towards everyone else who disagrees with them.
The one group in this country, that is not willing to FIGHT for “free speech”, nor shed blood for it like all the members of the military, past, present, and future, and the Leftist Nutbags are “winning” because of “Political Correctness”.
Un-freaking-believeable!
Couldn’t be bothered to read the opinion, huh? Because the MSM is always to be trusted when they support your cause!
George Will is a frighteningly effective writer. He sits on a sadly small and sparsely populated shelf alongside a few people like James Kilpatrick and James Wolcott. Love them or hate them, they use the English language like a deadly weapon.
For full disclosure, I’m part of the “enemy” in terms of the majority of commentors and readers here. I support gay rights (and all minority rights) pretty much without exception, as long as the actions in question don’t impinge on anyone else. I think government has no business, financial or otherwise, getting involved in “marriage” and that such should be left to the domain of the various religions and other social groups that wish to perform them. I also think that everyone, regardless of sexual preference, race, etc. should have equal access to government benefits and resources.
At the same time I am also an unabashed opponent of so-called “hate crime” laws, because I feel that they go against the absolute equality I think everyone is entitled to, even if you are unfortunate enough to have been born a straight, white, non-disabled male. This makes me rather unpopular with many of my sometimes allies on “the left.”
With that said, for those able to follow George Will’s powerful prose, you’ll note that he’s not saying “Gay marriage is bad, mmmkay?” Nor is he saying gays are bad. He’s talking about free speech. And I believe that everyone should have equal access to the channels of free speech whether I agree with them or not.
Should Oakland ban the GNEA from using the government e-mail system and other infrastructure from voicing their viewpoints? YES! Provided they also immediately (and , if possible, retroactively) ban PFLAG and everyone else from doing likewise. It’s a workplace! And, to boot, it’s an infrastructure being paid for by tax dollars to operate. What does this have to do with the job they are doing for us? There are plenty of public forums for both sides to air their views.
But if they are going to allow one, they have to allow all. That’s how it works. I know nothing about the GNEA or their goals, but I’m fairly sure that I would disagree with some of them. But I also know that I want them to have the free, equal opportunity to express those views alongside everyone else. When you step on free speech for one, you step on it for all.
Pardon me, but we’ve been “HERE” ever since a California statewide election return of 87% was overturned by ONE JUDGE who called the proposition UNCONSTITUTIONAL – even though NO CONSTITUTION IN THE USA requires as much as 87% for RATIFICATION of its Amendments – AND THE JUDGE’S RULING WAS ALLOWED TO STAND – UNCONSTITUTIONALLY.
Common sense would say that to say “No” to a thing is intellectually equivalent to saying “Yes” to it. But that’s not US federal law. “No” to gay marriage is a religious ideal and therefore suspect on government property; saying “Yes” to gay marriage is an affirmation of protected identity. Don’t hold your breath waiting for the Supreme Court to change that.
Very soon the courts will dictate that just asking the question ‘what does same-sex union between a man and a woman mean’ will be considered as hate speech.
Why cannot Americans take a look at what is happening today in Europe to understand how cultural Marxism is leading our own culture slowly towards suicide?
But if they are going to allow one, they have to allow all. That’s how it works. I know nothing about the GNEA or their goals, but I’m fairly sure that I would disagree with some of them. But I also know that I want them to have the free, equal opportunity to express those views alongside everyone else. When you step on free speech for one, you step on it for all.
Posted by: Jazz at June 24, 2007 3:39 PM
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There is one problem with your theory of Free Speech, and that of a few other people, here.
THE ORIGINAL PRIME DIRECTIVE of the EXISTENCE of a Community is HEALTHY LIVING, THRIVING CONDITIONS that support the members and their posterity.
One that does not meet THAT prime directive HAS NO EXCUSE FOR EXISTING TODAY.
Free Speech is fine, as far as it goes. BUT ALL ACTIONS ARE NOT HEALTHY OR CONDUCIVE TO THE LEGITIMATE GOALS OF A COMMUNITY.
It follows that SPEECH that moves towards DESTRUCTIVE ACTIVITIES has a limited scope of FREEDOM. AND A LIMITED RIGHT TO BE FREE SPEECH. If not to be BANNED all together!
You didn’t mention what happens if a man stands on a soapbox on one corner and starts ranting LIES that Mr. Jones in the store down the street is cheating everyone and feeding information to the local DICTATOR and that people will die because he is there if they don’t take action first and go kill HIM and burn his store down and steal everything in it.
THAT is against the law, Mr. Al Sharpton was once convicted in a CIVIL CASE for that, and owes a judgement to the family of the dead store owner, which last I heard, he never paid. He was a close enough friend of Toady Chappaquiddick Kennedy, that he avoided CRIMINAL charges for this incitement to commit murder.
Many activities are CRIMINALLY DESTRUCTIVE to a community – TO ANY community – and the COMMUNITY has the OVERALL RIGHT to decide if such activity will be accepted or not.
And to that degree, they have a right to impose limits on speech that promotes those ILLEGAL or UNACCEPTABLE behaviors and activities.
WHEN 87% OF THEM DECIDE THEY WILL NOT ACCEPT IT, but ONE JUDGE says THAT isn’t Constitutional, in spite of the fact that the level of votes required for an AMENDMENT to pass, either for a State Constituion or the National Constitution IS NEVER THAT HIGH — THEN THE COMMUNITY HAS REJECTED THAT ACTIVITY. SPEECH in that event is fine – BUT FORCING PEOPLE TO ACCEPT it is NOT.
It is the JUDGE who abrogated his fiduciary duties to his own community and trampled the Constitution. He should have been impeached and remanded to trial for TREASON, on grounds of mounting an insurrection.
The Community has a right to decide what burdens it will bear, and which it will NOT, and if you say that an individual’s PREFERENCES have DOMINANCE over the MAJORITY RULE to REJECT that behavior, THEN YOU HAVE VOTED FOR DICTATORSHIP, by sheer definition.
In that case, ANARCHY REIGNS and those who object have as much right to express their displeasure as the “activist” has to revolt against Majority Rule.
NOT a place any MINORITY should want to find themselves, NO MATTER HOW “OPPRESSED” they FEEL by having to COMPORT THEMSELVES WITH SELF-DISCIPLINE IN THE FIDUCIARY DUTIES THEY OWE THEIR OWN COMMUNITY upon which they rely FOR LIFE-SUSTAINING SUPPORT.
“The first principle of republicanism is that the lex majoris partis is the fundamental law of every society of individuals of equal rights; to consider the will of the society enounced by the majority of a single vote as sacred as if unanimous is the first of all lessons in importance, yet the last which is thoroughly learnt. This law once disregarded, no other remains but that of force, which ends necessarily in military despotism.” –Thomas Jefferson to Alexander von Humboldt, 1817. ME 15:127
“The will of the people… is the only legitimate foundation of any government, and to protect its free expression should be our first object.” –Thomas Jefferson to Benjamin Waring, 1801. ME 10:236
“The measures of the fair majority… ought always to be respected.” –Thomas Jefferson to George Washington, 1792. ME 8:397
“I subscribe to the principle, that the will of the majority honestly expressed should give law.” –Thomas Jefferson: The Anas, 1793. ME 1:332
“And where else will [Hume,] this degenerate son of science, this traitor to his fellow men, find the origin of just powers, if not in the majority of the society? Will it be in the minority? Or in an individual of that minority?” –Thomas Jefferson to John Cartwright, 1824. ME 16:44
“Where the law of the majority ceases to be acknowledged, there government ends, the law of the strongest takes its place, and life and property are his who can take them.” –Thomas Jefferson to Annapolis Citizens, 1809. ME 16:337
“Absolute acquiescence in the decision of the majority, the vital principle of republics, from which is no appeal but to force, the vital principle and immediate parent of despotism, I deem [one of] the principles of our Government, and consequently [one of] those which ought to shape its administration.” –Thomas Jefferson: 1st Inaugural, 1801. ME 3:321
“If the measures which have been pursued are approved by the majority, it is the duty of the minority to acquiesce and conform.” –Thomas Jefferson to William Duane, 1811. ME 13:51
“Laws made by common consent must not be trampled on by individuals.” –Thomas Jefferson to Garret Vanmeter, 1781. ME 4:417, Papers 5:566
“Great innovations should not be forced on a slender majority.” –Thomas Jefferson to John Armstrong, 1808. ME 12:42
If this last is true, that a slender MAJORITY should NOT force great change, how much more that a MINISCULE PERCENTAGE should not force change upon the MAJORITY.
You need to think, if you force this principle that the smallest minority has MORE POWER, by what THEY DEEM “RIGHT” regardless of the detailed arguments of the MAJORITY OPPOSING – much less the great passion of the great Majority – claiming more “RIGHTNESS”, than a GREAT MAJORITY, as in the case of HOMOSEXUAL RIGHTS on many issues, THINK WHAT OTHER USES THAT DICTATORS HAVE ALREADY USED THAT PRINCIPLE FOR …. AND CERTAINLY WILL AGAIN, WHEN THOSE “LABORING FOR HOMOSEXUAL RIGHTS” FORCE THIS DOOR (of minority rule) WIDE OPEN IN AMERICA!
No one in the entire world has that right. Even if they have that POWER.
America is founded and exists purely by MAJORITY RULE.
Some judges and Senators need to be reminded.
It will be a very ugly thing if they finally get America rumbling as a WHOLE to restore their own NATURAL RIGHTS – by coming AT THEM full force.
Teach them by as light means as they are willing to accept. But by AS MUCH as it takes to ACCOMPLISH it.
Unfortunately, there are always some humans who will hang onto something they want so badly, but is not theirs to have – like those monkey traps in some third world nations, a jar with some candy or bright object, with a neck large enough to allow an open monkey hand to be put INTO the jar, but not big enough for a monkey FIST with something in it to be pulled OUT of the jar.
And thus the monkey ends up on someone’s SUPPER TABLE.
Those who push the limits of the Majority will also RISK AND THEREFORE AUTOMATICALLY TAKE UPON THEMSELVES the responsibility for the limits of the community’s VIABILITY.
Anyone who selfishly destroys the community’s ability to provide a thriving nest for Posterity is too destructive to be tolerated as a MEMBER IN GOOD STANDING of any community.
When a community has deemed that talk of MARRIAGE AND NATURAL FAMILY is TOO HATEFUL to HOMOSEXUALITY, it has lost all sight of their prime directive and have elected COMMUNITY SUICIDE – literally.
All because they accepted the standards of equality from SOCIALISM and REJECTED the standards of Equality set forth by our Founding Fathers.
No – THAT is a Socialist CONTENTION.
The oakland ruling CONFIRMS the enmity between homosexual “rights” and the Natural Family.
The community CANNOT EXIST without the NATURAL FAMILY, but no community has EVER been harmed by the absence of homosexual activity.
The community has an interest in SELF-PRESERVATION in always choosing the side of the The Natural Family.
Anyone who does otherwise is DESERVEDLY IMMEDIATELY SUSPECT, and many tribes at that point cast out those who try to bring destruction into their tribe.
At the very least.
For instance, the CDC shows NO RELIGIOUS PREFERENCE, yet no amount of lobbying has made them accept homosexual men as BLOOD DONORS – for PRACTICAL REASONS the lobbiests cannot deny or refute or counterbalance.
Why cannot Americans take a look at what is happening today in Europe to understand how cultural Marxism is leading our own culture slowly towards suicide?
Posted by: syn at June 24, 2007 4:58 PM
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What keeps us from recognizing that a large part of them KNOW that it is National Suicide AND THAT REALLY IS THEIR CHOSEN AND DELIBERATE GOAL – while others recognize it, BUT WOULD RATHER BE CAUGHT DEAD THAN BE CAUGHT WITHOUT THEIR OWN VERSION OF “GOOD MANNERS”, and are simply TOO DEADLY POLITE TO LIVE.
The Yell: “”No” to gay marriage is a religious ideal and therefore suspect on government property;”
Nonsense. One can be opposed to homosexual marriage on other than religious grounds. By your logic then opposition to abortion, pornography, gambling, gluttony, extramarital sex, and so on would have to be banned since those views are also often informed by religious beliefs.
Robert Brown
I have said it doesn’t make much sense to me. But that’s the “spin”.
Actually the hair is split finer: a government entity that chose of its own decision to ban such activity on the grounds of church/state entanglement would probably be sustained. A different matter than a court compelling a government entity to make that decision.
Never for a moment think that liberals actively support or believe in something like free speech. Correct speech yes, free speech, never.
Couldn’t be bothered to read the opinion, huh? Because the MSM is always to be trusted when they support your cause!
What’s your point, jpe? That the Ninth Circuit actually ruled the other way? That the phrase “vanishingly small” wasn’t in the opinion (it is–you can check it here)? Or is it that the Ninth was correct, and that speech you and your lefty buddies don’t agree with should be suppressed? Or are you just being a twit?
I think you are splitting the hairs too fine.
Regardless of how the issue gets to the courts, they must decide whether allowing someone to express an opinion using public resources that happens to agree with the teachings of a religion is the establishment of religion by the state. I don’t see how they could come to that conclusion as long as the speech is confined to discussion of values and not theology (unless they have an agenda).
Twitters and bytes, and bites of twits?
With brevity and the soul of wit,
And splits of hairs and whine so fine,
Where might be a place to dine,
With those courageous men so fitted
Whose words by deeds are thus aquitted?
I support developing a judiciary that throws those issues to the legislature. Right now we don’t have one, they’re tacking back and forth charting a course on the law of such things. But you’re going to see the attitude that Gay Rights is not as suspect as “opposition to abortion, pornography, gambling, gluttony, extramarital sex, and so on” because of the religious overtones.
This case reminds me of the maxim, de miniis non curat lex–the law does not concern itself with trifles. This case has more to do with the nuances of federal civil rights law than with favoring one speaker or viewpoint over another–regardless of what those on Eric Rudolph’s side of the culture war would have us believe.
A reading of the district court’s opinion, which the Court of Appeals adopted, suggests that the Plaintiffs sued supervisory officials who had neither removed the flyer nor directed, approved, authorized or ratified its removal. To find individual capacity liability here would be to impose respondeat superior or vicarious liability upon supervisors for the actions of subordinates–a proposition which federal courts have consistently rejected.
Jazz: you aren’t alone. I don’t see the reason for government to be involved in marriage either, and go along with just about every other viewpoint you have.
I am conservative in many ways, but refuse to call myself such. The term conservative has been hijacked by the folks who believe that to be conservative, you need to dislike, or HATE, homosexuals, you need to be in favor of state-mandated “voluntary” prayer in the classroom, and other such things.
Bong Hits 4 SCOTUS
The latest batch of Supreme Court rulings are occurring, including their decision on the infamous “Bong Hits 4 Jesus” case. Orrin Judd writes, “the Left is going to be hyperventilating somethin’ fierce” over their decisions. And speaking of which, as…
George Will on the latest soon-to-be-overturned 9th Circuit constitutional atrocity
George Will: Valuing Speech
Marriage is the foundation of the natural family and sustains family values. That sentence is inflammatory, perhaps even a hate crime.
At least it is in Oakland, Calif. That city’s government says those words italicize…