Amer·i·ca·na
Pro­nun­ci­a­tion: \ə-ˌmer-ə-ˈkä-nə, -ˌmər-, -ˌme-rə-, -ˈka-nə\
Func­tion: noun plural
Date: 1841

1: Mate­ri­als con­cern­ing or char­ac­ter­is­tic of Amer­ica, its civ­i­liza­tion, or its cul­ture ; broadly : things typ­i­cal of Amer­ica
2: Amer­i­can culture

In this series, I’d like to explore var­i­ous aspect of life in North Amer­ica. Each topic will be illus­trated by a black and white picture.

Cold News On A Snowy Day

Free­dom of speech is the right to speak freely with­out cen­sor­ship or lim­i­ta­tions. In the U.S.A, The First Amend­ment to the Con­sti­tu­tion pro­hibits — among other things — the Con­gress from mak­ing laws that infringe the free­dom of speech or the free­dom of the press.

Free speech is a major part of the foun­da­tion of Amer­i­can soci­ety and many stand up to pro­tect the core Amer­i­can val­ues. But the First Amend­ment also brings up ques­tions: are there lim­its to the free­dom of speech? If a group instill racism, sex­ism, and homo­pho­bia or other ques­tion­able views, should it still be pro­tected under the First Amendment?

I first heard of the West­boro Bap­tist Church after this summer’s bizarre mur­der in a Grey­hound bus in Canada. The Globe and Mail reported at the time that the Church mem­bers, from Topeka Kansas, were going to picket the funer­als of the kid who was mur­dered, because he was, I quote, “a fag”.

Obvi­ously, I was curi­ous and researched this church a bit. Turned out they are a bunch of lunatics who con­demn: “les­bian, gay, bisex­ual, and trans­gen­der peo­ple (LGBT), Roman Catholics, Mus­lims and Jews, as well as pop­u­la­tions sup­port­ing the afore­men­tioned groups, includ­ing Swedes, Cana­di­ans, Irish, British, and Amer­i­cans”. They have catchy plac­ards pro­claim­ing “God hates fags”, “Thanks for 9/11″, “Thanks for Kat­rina” or “God hates Amer­ica”. And they spe­cial­ized in pick­et­ing funer­als of all these they think are “fags” (pretty much all of us).

For­tu­nately, they have been banned from enter­ing Canada for hate speech. In the U.S.A, they are enti­tled to their views, but may not be pro­tected by the First Amend­ment because their state­ments are extreme and out­ra­geous. So far though, there isn’t much to do. A group was formed to shel­ter and pro­tect the funer­als of US sol­diers (because of course, “God hates U.S Army sol­diers”) from pro­test­ers from the WBC and some law­suits were occa­sion­ally filled.

Some would love the West­boro Bap­tist Church to be sued for hate speeches, while some say (with­out sup­port­ing them) that groups like them may be the ulti­mate test for the First Amend­ment and free speech.

I tend to believe John Stu­art Mill’s harm prin­ci­ple, which places the fol­low­ing lim­i­ta­tion on free expres­sion: “the only pur­pose for which power can be right­fully exer­cised over any mem­ber of a civ­i­lized com­mu­nity, against his will, is to pre­vent harm to oth­ers.”

Related posts:

1. Pic­ture of the Week: The Evangelists
2. Los­ing My Religion
3. Wel­come To The Jungle
4. Fast Food, Junk Food (4÷10)
5. Cachoeira Do Tobogã