by Anthony Perlingos

Created on: November 05, 2009   Last Updated: November 06, 2009

There is probably no one topic that raises the interest of an individual then debating the interpretation of the first amendment in the categories of free speech , freedom of religion, and freedom of the press. Judith Miller of the New York Times was put in jail not long ago for not divulging one of her sources and I personally feel that it was an injustice and flies in the face of protection of the press at large. That being said today we look at hate speech and whether it should be tolerated.

Hate speech by the definition I found most applicable is any form of speech intended to degrade, intimidate, or incite violence or prejudicial violence against someone based on ethnicity, religious affiliation, sexual orientation, or disability. And for me this is a definition I can agree with as I think it covers the most extreme cases of this kind of poisonous verb-age. Now any thinking person in the early 60s could not possibly believe wholeheartedly in the tenets of the KKK. Nor should that kind of hate speech be promoted, even though we all know there still exists this type of mentality out there in spite of what progress we have made in race relations. Nor do I think that anyone with any humanity within them take that kind of extremism seriously in the new millennium here, or at least I would hope so. However in our ever changing society what constitutes hate speech has changed as well as the fabric of our society as we are more diverse now then at any time in our history.

However from my observations of modern society we have gotten pretty thin skinned as a society. If you want the borders to be protected and do not want to pay the tab for social services of the illegal immigrants you are immediately tagged as a racist. If you believe that marriage is a sacrament between a man and a woman ( which I do ) you are immediately labeled as a homophobic and a bigot. If you believe that a person should get a promotion based on their achievement as opposed to their ethnicity you are also labeled a racist. My point being that you pretty much cannot say anything anymore because someone will get offended. Bob Griese the hall of fame quarterback from the Miami Dolphins made a comment about a cab driver looking for a taco and sure enough someone got offended and he gets suspended for what I believe to be a fairly harmless remark. Larry Johnson twitters some not so nice remarks about homosexuality and is all but released from the Kansas City Chiefs. Rush Limbaugh who I am no

• 1
• 2
• Next Page >>