Monday, January 13, 1997
OFFENSE:
A free thinker unable to speak freely is nothing but a
sycophantBy Jeff Lazarus
The right to talk is the right to offend.
Marion Morales’ article "Incident of homophobia inspires …"
(Jan. 9) begins with two of the most dangerous statements yet
conceived in the English language. The first, in the subheadline,
reads "In public, free speech is the right to talk, not the right
to offend." The second is the first sentence of the article, "When
your words and actions in a public place become blatantly mean
spirited and even hateful, your constitutional freedom of speech
ends."
To respond to the first statement: As anybody who has studied
history knows, the right to speak is meaningless without the right
to offend. We must remember that offending somebody often involves
nothing more than disagreeing with that person. Something as small
as advocating a certain political party can be offensive. Taking
away the right to make all statements which might offend somebody
is dangerously Orwellian and subversive.
Missing that crucial component, the right to speak is merely the
right to be a sycophant  the right to be a lapdog of those
who are stronger than you. The greatest leaders of history have
been the people whose speech offended those in power the most.
To name only the most cursory of examples, the Founding Fathers
strongly offended the English by asserting the freedom of the
colonies. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. offended all sorts of bigots
and racists by insisting that people of all colors are equal and
should be treated as such. Mahatma Ghandi offended the British in
India by exposing the injustice of their rule.
The right to offend, and to do so in public, is one of the most
fundamental rights known to man. It is the right to dissent from
the majority. It is the right to disagree with those in power. It
is the right to argue with your neighbor. It is protected in the
First Amendment in our Bill of Rights, and its placement in the
very first amendment is not coincidence. Recognizing that right
from the outset has set the United States aside from other nations.
Expanding that right to all people has made our country only
greater and stronger.
Suspension of a person’s right to offend has been tried before.
During the middle ages, those who offended the King of England were
imprisoned in the Tower of London or simply killed. Similar things
happened in all other nations. More recently, in the former Soviet
Union, dissident free thinkers were sent to gulags in Siberia.
It has even been tried right here in the United States; the most
hateful pieces of our national history involve our suspensions of
people’s rights to offend, when people’s ability to speak for
themselves is discarded. The Japanese internment during World War
II comes immediately to mind, as do the Alien and Sedition acts of
the late 19th century and slavery followed by 100 years of Jim Crow
laws.
To respond to the second statement: We like to say we are a
tolerant society; however, tolerance does not merely include
putting up with those who we disagree with  it is defined by
it.
It is easy to tolerate those whom we like, it is hard to
tolerate those whom we do not. A truly tolerant society must allow
for the speech of every member, even bigots and racists such as the
one Morales writes about. We tread a dangerous line when we seek to
eliminate speech which is hateful to us. All speech is hateful to
somebody. This article will offend somebody, as will something say
within the next hour. Giving that "somebody" the right to determine
when, where and what we speak is tantamount to giving that person
power over our thought.
Thought is powerless without expression, without
communication.
Mr. Morales, as an openly gay man (a combination of which you
can be rightfully proud, by the way), you of all people should see
the dangers inherent in suppressing speech. In recent history your
speech has been suppressed more than most. Now that you are on the
verge of attaining true equality, you should not seek to do unto
others as others have done unto you.