By Amy Alkon
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First Amendment Summer School: No, There’s No “Hate Speech” Exception
About Pamela Geller, there are all these people writing that sure, there’s a First Amendment in this country…and then they add that “but…”
Eric Erickson writes at NOLA.com:
Amazingly, the American media and much of the American left spent vastly more time attacking Pamela Geller than the jihadists who tried to kill her. Echoing Islamic radicals, members of the press whose careers depend on the First Amendment now insist there be restrictions on the First Amendment.
More specifically, when Catholics protested a satanic black mass in Massachusetts, the Boston Globe’s editorialists wrote that the Catholics just needed to get over it and not let themselves be trolled. When Rudy Giuliani attempted to shut down an art exhibit of the Virgin Mary painted in dung, the New York Times extolled the virtues of free speech and creativity. Now, while advertising tickets to the “Book of Mormon” play, the New York Times is running editorials attacking Pamela Geller and demanding respect for Islam.
CNN’s Chris Cuomo, who never misses an opportunity to show how dumb he is, took to Twitter to claim “hate speech” has no protections under the First Amendment. Cuomo, in addition to being Mario Cuomo’s son, which is his chief and only real claim to advancement in society, is a lawyer. Luckily for America, the United States Supreme Court disagrees with Cuomo.
In 1992, the Court held that burning a cross in a black family’s yard could be prosecuted, but not as hate speech because, unlike what Cuomo claimed, hate speech is still speech and therefore protected under the first amendment. In 2011, the Court held that the Westboro Baptist Church could protest military funerals. Again, they may be offensive, but their speech is protected.
To the American media, burning a cross in a black family’s yard is free speech; protesting a military funeral is free speech; but saying homosexuality is a sin in the Bible should force re-education, and drawing Mohammed should get you thrown in jail.
Constitutional law professor Eugene Volokh clears things up on his WaPo blog:
I keep hearing about a supposed “hate speech” exception to the First Amendment, or statements such as, “This isn’t free speech, it’s hate speech,” or “When does free speech stop and hate speech begin?” But there is no hate speech exception to the First Amendment. Hateful ideas (whatever exactly that might mean) …Click Here To Read The Full Story >>>
Source:: Donkeyrock_BlurBlog
