Free for all

Reactions to the brutal shootings in Paris last month inadvertently have clarified at least one important issue. And that clarification may produce an unexpected result, leaving many of us conservatives in debt to our liberal counterparts.

The big lesson, repeated and emphasized so many times no one could possibly miss it, is that there is absolutely no expression of any kind, about any topic whatsoever, that can be forbidden or outlawed just because someone somewhere might find that expression to be offensive. Freedom of the press, freedom of speech, and ultimately freedom of all expression, must be absolute—or it means nothing at all.

According to this way of thinking, it doesn’t matter how ugly and objectionable the cartoons of Charlie Hebdo may have been to a typical fundamentalist Islamic reader. Such a reader will just have to learn to put up with such offenses. And for sure, neither that reader nor any of his similarly offended friends has any right to try to shut down or even limit the creation and circulation of a magazine, newspaper, newsletter, movie, YouTube video, or high-school yearbook. The consensus on this point was remarkable. Nobody dared to differ. Of course, of course, of course. The public fell obligingly into line, agreeing that if you claim even a smidgen of a right to restrict what someone else is saying, you’re setting yourself up as a dangerous censor and sower of the seeds of an ultimately repressive society. It absolutely doesn’t matter how offensive the content is. No censorship or repression allowed.

We outspoken ones on the right have now become kissing cousins or inadvertent compatriots, if you will, of those far over on the left.

Sound pretty extreme? Let me tell you why you and I should buy into such reasoning: In pretty much the same spirit that the publishers and creative teams of Charlie Hebdo are threatened with all kinds of harm if they don’t back off their lurid critique, so we evangelical conservatives are told we’ll be arrested, fined, taken to jail, and maybe worse if we don’t tone down the “hateful” things we say about homosexuality, abortionists, marriage, etc. Quite oddly, we outspoken ones on the right have now become kissing cousins or inadvertent compatriots, if you will, of those far over on the left.

But the overall impact is odder yet. For one thing, an obvious inconsistency has overwhelmed many in the media. PBS, for example, exercised its own blatant form of censorship as it led dozens of other media outlets in refusing to display any of the artwork that had so offended millions of Muslims. “We decided,” PBS said on its Jan. 14 newscast, “that the offense that might cause to many outweighs the news value” of including the cartoon on the broadcast. “Freedom of expression must be absolute—or such freedom means nothing at all”—isn’t that what we learned in the dreadful French shootout? Unless, of course, we are the ones who get to dictate the terms of the censorship.

Oddest of all, though, is the distance these folks continue to accept between the free exercise rights of an admittedly off-color and reportedly pornographic magazine in Paris, on the one hand, and the parallel rights, on the other hand, of a whole category of evangelical pastors in Houston who were subpoenaed over anything in any of their sermons that might be interpreted as hate speech (the Houston mayor, under pressure, dropped her demands). Or the distance between the free exercise rights of that Paris magazine office and the free exercise rights of the Atlanta fire chief fired for including, in a book he authored, a handful of negative comments about the practice of homosexual behavior.

Admittedly, knowing which kinds of offensive public expression can be tolerated and which kinds can’t is a tough assignment. It’s so tough, in fact, that it’s easy as a result to find yourself driven to the extreme of saying: No censorship allowed.

Let’s jump on this bandwagon while it’s still rolling, and while it’s easy to get aboard. And then, when they come to haul you, me, and the rest of the WORLD staff away for hate speech, I can remind them that they simply can’t have it both ways.

Email jbelz@wng.org