Freedom of Speech

As I watched the Cincinnati Bengals get crushed by the Minnesota Vikings last Sunday, I had little doubt that the fan reaction would be negative and intense toward the Bengal’s head coach and certain Bengal players. When I opened my X account to view fan reaction, it was even worse than I expected! Many of the postings were mean, nasty, and even disgusting. As I reflected on the posts, I stopped for a moment to consider that these posts can be shared publicly in the United States without fear of governmental sanctions or arrest because we enjoy Freedom of Speech which is memorialized and written down in the First Amendment to the United States Constitution.

Western European countries such as France, Germany, and the United Kingdom all maintain that their citizens enjoy freedom of speech, but the facts on the ground suggest otherwise. France and Germany protect freedom of speech in their constitutions, but the protection is qualified by laws prohibiting hate speech and speech which could cause incitement to violence. These qualifications can become a broad carve out. The UK has no written constitution, and freedom of speech in the UK is protected through common law protections. UK comedian Graham Linehan recently found out that these common law protections may not offer as much protection as might have been anticipated when he was recently arrested at London’s Heathrow Airport for certain transgender related posts on X which UK authorities deemed could incite violence.

The Constitutional protection for Freedom of Speech in the United States prevents local, state, and federal governments from enacting laws which limit the free exercise of speech, but this protection does not extend to actions taken by employers in response to speech shared by employees. This is an important distinction which is often overlooked. Said in a different way, an individual may have a constitutional right to freedom of speech but not a constitutional right to maintain her job if her employer terminates her for comments made in a social media posting or other public communication. Employers consistently take disciplinary actions against employees, including termination of employment, when employers deem it necessary to safeguard reputational, customer relations, and employee morale concerns.  During my professional career, I did not agree with many actions my company took on DEI, but I needed no one to tell me that any public criticisms undertaken by me would have no constitutional free speech protection as an employee. 

As a Christian and a Conservative, I was heartbroken at the cold bloodied assassination of Conservative Activist Charlie Kirk. This cut to the quick for me. Many employers have understandably terminated employees because of social media posts and other public communications made by employees regarding this tragic event which the employers deemed inappropriate. In fact, many of these communications were shockingly mean-spirited, callous, and offensive by any standard of decency and decorum.

But one development arising from the Charlie Kirk assassination is quite troubling. This is regarding official statements made by the United States Attorney General and the Chair of Federal Communications Commission which expressed an intention to utilize governmental resources against individuals and organizations who made mean, vile, and inappropriate comments regarding the Charlie Kirk assassination. Conservatives should understand that if the power of government is exercised against this type of speech, how long will it be until a Progressive Administration exercises the power of government against a Conservative podcaster for sharing content deemed by the Progressive Administration to be offensive hate speech? United States Senator Ted Cruz has made this point abundantly clear in his defense of late-night media personality Jimmy Kimmel.

To be sure, these officials from the Trump administration are not alone in their desire to utilize the power of government against content and speech shared by individuals and organizations which they oppose. The Biden and Obama administrations have supported proposed Federal Communications Commission regulations and Congressional legislation which would have regulated content on social media platforms. The Biden Administration’s efforts in pressuring social media platforms to censor COVID-19 and other posts the administration opposed is now well known. In fact, Google has recently acknowledged this publicly and has committed to resist this type of governmental pressure in the future. Meta has done the same. Let’s trust that these tech companies stay true to their word.

The fact that Republican and Democratic administrations have each sought to limit, censor, or sanction speech they oppose is no consolation. The United States Constitutional protection for Freedom of Speech is the exception and not the norm for other nations. It should never be taken for granted and must be safeguarded even for speech which many may even consider vile and reprehensible. Government should not be the arbiter of what constitutes good and acceptable speech!

In closing, I must admit that this discussion about freedom of speech, and how opposing parties seek to limit it for the other side, reminds me of another discussion that took place about 2,000 years ago. In the Gospel of Luke 9:51-56, Jesus sent an advance team of his disciples ahead to a Samaritan village where Jesus and his entourage wished to spend time on their way to Jerusalem.  Samaritans and Jews were not on good terms because of long standing theological and ethnic tensions, and the Samaritans wanted no part of a group of Jews like Jesus and his disciples spending time in their village. In response, two of Jesus’ senior disciples wanted to call fire down from Heaven on the Samaritans to destroy them. Jesus rejected this approach and sharply rebuked them. Jesus made it clear this was not the type of mission that he was pursuing. Is there anything we can learn from this story?

God bless you and thank you for the privilege of your time in reading my blog.