Freedom of (offensive) speech

Prize-winning British author Philip Pullman has attracted outrage with his book The Good Man Jesus and the Scoundrel Christ. Naturally, for Pullman gives us a Mary who bears twins, one of whom is persuaded by a dark stranger to play the role of Judas so that a wealthy institutional church can be founded and sustained. All of which entertains and instructs in a way that befits his atheism, as reviewer Christopher Howse explains.

The nature of his tale does not detract from his defense of freedom of speech any more than family minister and street preacher Shawn Holes' attack on homosexuality changes the free speech implications of his arrest in Scotland:

[H/T: Andrew Sullivan]

Montana church's speech rights violated by treatment as a political committee

The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled Wednesday that Montana election law was unconstitutionally applied to an East Helena church which supported a 2004 ballot initiative to define marriage as a union between a man and a woman.

Howard M. Friedman explains that Canyon Ferry Road Baptist Church "advertised and hosted a one-time screening of a video in support of the amendment and made petitions available in its foyer for signing."

Reversing a lower court decision, 9th Circuit ruled that "disclosure and reporting requirements are unconstitutional as applied to the Church’s de minimis activities," violating the church's right to freedom of speech under the First Amendment.

Circuit Judge John T. Noonan, in a concurring opinion, argued that the matter should have been decided on freedom of religion grounds:

“What has happened here is that a small congregation has been put to trouble and expense in order to exercise its right to speak on an issue seen by it to be of vital religious significance. One lesson of history is that small incursions on freedom are to be resisted lest they grow greater,” Noonan wrote.

This is an Alliance Defense Fund case and, because it tends to erode a previously defined boundary, a signal that the already contentious issue of religion in politics is destined to become more so.

Trample freedom of expression, but nothing to stop pedophiles?

How ironic for Richard Land to mourn the death of the unconstitutional, technologically ineffective Child Online Protection Act without having raised his voice for a pedophilia database to help protect young Baptists from clerical sexual predators.

Land is head of the Southern Baptist Convention's Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission. He decried the high court's decision on Jan. 22 as follows:

Unfortunately, our Supreme Court has concluded that an adult's supposed 'right' to see anything he wants to see trumps society's obligation to protect children from exposure to such spiritual toxic waste. Untold human suffering will be the result of this stupefyingly wrong decision.

As if parents were unable to take measures to protect their children.

It would be irrationally optimistic to expect Land and other COPA supporters to note that it:

• Would have imposed serious burdens on constitutionally-protected speech -- anything conceivably "harmful to minors." That standard proved impossible to effectively define.
• Would have failed to prevent children from seeing inappropriate material originating from outside of the US, or available by means other than the World Wide Web.
• Did not represent the least restrictive means of regulating speech. Parental supervision assisted by individually applied filters appear to be that.

A study commissioned by 49 state attorneys general, and released on January 14, noted that parents set their household standards and are the true enforcers of them. As a result:

Parents and caregivers should: educate themselves about the Internet and the ways in which their children use it, as well as about technology in general; explore and evaluate the effectiveness of available technological tools for their particular child and their family context, and adopt those tools as may be appropriate; be engaged and involved in their children's Internet use; be conscious of the common risks youth face to help their children understand and navigate the technologies; be attentive to at-risk minors in their community and in their children's peer group; and recognize when they need to seek help from others.

May we turn now to dealing with the large number of Baptist clerical sexual predators?

Last year the SBC failed to implement an obvious solution that would help, thus earning itself sixth place on Time Magazine's Top 10 Underreported News Stories of 2008:

Facing calls to curb child sex abuse within its churches, in June the Southern Baptist Convention -- the largest U.S. religious body after the Catholic Church -- urged local hiring committees to conduct federal background checks but rejected a proposal to create a central database of staff and clergy who have been either convicted of or indicted on charges of molesting minors.

Certainly the SBC cares enough about children to implement a solution that would actually help remedy a devastatingly destructive problem which burns like a wildfire through its midst?