Freedom of Speech and Sexual Orientation

Great Debates
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Occassionally I’ll post some work I’ve been doing for a local newspaper column if I think its interesting, but I’ve been writing a column which I really feel I need feedback on. Since the topic is somewhat inflammatory, I decided Great Debates would be the most ideal place to start this thread. Basically the topic is my view of what seems to be hypocricy within the gay community, but maybe y’all see things another way or see some inconsistency within it…

Painful Freedom

I’m biting my knuckles as I write this, because it puts a really bad taste in my mouth, but I need to type it out if only to acknowledge a sense of fairness that I’ve tried to construct within myself. Being fair is more difficult than it sounds, because it does require you to apply the same standards to your worst enemy as you would to yourself. If you would be gentle to yourself in certain situations, you must at least make an effort to be gentle with the one you despise most should they find themselves in that same situation. Otherwise its not fair, its not justice. So, against my better judgement and sanity (blame the cold medicine), I’m going to write an attempted defense of conservative religion. Please hold all stone-throwing until the end!

We the gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender (hereafter referred to as “queer”, because otherwise my fingers start to ache from typing) community toss around the words “diverse” and “equality”, but don’t always practice as we preach. Many of us are total hypocrites, in fact, and maybe we need to be called into account. If a university or semi-private open organization banned a rally by a gay rights group on their grounds because they “disagreed with the sin of homosexuality”, we would be up in arms about the whole thing and rightfully so. It would be suppression of free thought because of religious bigotry, an offense against many of the principles this nation rests upon. But would we react so strongly if a university banned, say, Exodus International (the ex-gay group) from holding a rally within university guidelines because they “disagreed with the fostering of homophobia”? Somehow I doubt it, yet the same effect is occuring there. It is religious bigotry suppressing free thought and speech, which is flat-out wrong. Am I a religious bigot? Yes. I think Exodus International is the biggest scam since pyramid schemes were invented. I think the Southern Baptist Convention needs to grow up and get a life outside of being voyeurs in bedrooms. I would shout and type that as often as I possibly could, because I believe it to be the truth. But should we be gagging these people from speaking? No. They have rights, as citizens of the USA, to speak their truth even if it makes my skin crawl. By cutting off their side of the dialogue, we are just as bad as they are. If we are right then let them speak, because we will be able to counter every argument with fact. If we are wrong then better we learned that through rational debate than huddling around our errors like the dogma many claim to disdain.

“But such speech encourages violence against queer people”, I hear. And some of the diatribes we heard spewed against the religious right isn’t encouraging hatred and violence against them? If your position is truly that we should cut off hate speech, you’d better be consistent or drop the equality schtick. Personally, I would rather take that chance and get people talking instead of shutting down all speech and allowing such boils to fester in generations to come. We must excise the disease of lies and stereotypes about queer people not by sealing it away, but exposing it to the light and countering it at every turn. And although I think we have most of the truth on our side, we must also be prepared for some of our own stereotypes to come bubbling to the surface, ready to lance them and become better people. So my plea to you is to stand up against those who would stop speech and truly fight for equality in America.

“America isn’t easy. America is advanced citizenship. You’ve gotta want it bad, cause it’s gonna put up a fight. It’s gonna say, ‘You want free speech? Let’s see you acknowledge a man whose words make your blood boil, who’s standing center stage and advocating at the top of his lungs that which you would spend a lifetime opposing at the top of yours.’” - The American President

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Say a lie a thousand times and it will be taken as the truth…

So the answer is NO. Hate speech doesn’t need to be banned but it musn’t be allowed freely or without response. Especially since some of those exposed to it will not be exposed to other views or responses.

It's also one thing to criticize Queer sex... and another to criticize Queers themselves. The first makes people curious about gay sex (hehe) and the other angry and revolted towards queers.
3

Nope, you’re right. The answer to bad ideas and bad speech is [excessive font tags]always [/excessive font tags] better ideas and better speech.

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No matter how stupid someone’s speech is, I’d rather live in a country where they can be stupid out loud and not have to take it underground. I’m for the freest speech possible, this side of “FIRE!” etc.

You’re right Priam; keep emphasizing that the remedy to irrational speech is rational speech; silences serves no one.

5

::applauds::

There are issues, I’ll grant. Not everyone has equal access to an amplified podium, a mainstream broadcast advertisement spot, or a significant percentage of New York City subway billboards. I’ll not attempt to propose a solution to that, just citing it as a fly in the “marketplace of free ideas” ointment.

But yeah. As long as I get to speak, I want the spectrum of competing ideas out in the daylight as well. Let people see how they think as well as what they think, by all means. The most difficult audience would be the one unfamiliar with any side of the relevant arguments.

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I won’t claim to know much about the queer community/communities, but based on what you’re writing, I can’t say I see any hypocrisy.

If queer people/groups try to surpress the free speech of anti-queer people/groups, that’s definitively a Bad Thing deserving of criticism. But if their only sin is to refrain from actively defending the free speech of those who speek against them, I find it hard to summon any moral indignation.

Also, there is a difference between attacking someone else, and defending yourself. If I’m saying “Um, yes, I have brown hair, and I don’t think I should be ashamed of that,” and you’re *) saying “Brown-haired people are flawed and perverted, and if you dare flaunt your abnormal hair in public you’ve only yourself to blame if you provoke some normal-haired people to forcibly shave you,” I can’t help but feeling that I have the moral high ground. I shouldn’t try to prevent you from holding a “Protect free speech for the blond and black-haired movement” rally, but I can’t see that it’s my duty to show up or voice my support.

(* That’s a generic “you”, of course - I’m not accusing Priam of being a blond&blackhaired supremacist :slight_smile: )

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I’ve seen or read of both suppression and non-action occuring, hildea, and I feel it is hypocricy fundamentally. Whether or not I believe what is being said, they don’t view their preaching as an attack but as a defense of their moral values. We should never forget how the other side sees things, because understanding the driving force can help to cure the conflict. Upon reflection, I would say every time the GLBT community stands by and does nothing or, worse, actively supports the suppression of a religious right event, we only feed the fires of those who would destroy us. They look at us and see a threat to the moral fiber of a society I’m sure most of them cherish dearly. How do we cure that fear? Not by tacitly or actively fighting against their talks, but by letting them speak and even supporting their right to speech should someone shut them down, and then setting up our own stump nearby to show our truth. We win by showing that we are just as good people and citizens as they are.

Thats a little scatter-brained and I apologize if its not quite clear or lucid, but its at least an attempt.

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I’m with Priam, for the reasons he (eloquently) gives.

It’s my firm belief that in the struggle of truth with falsehood, we may lose some of the battles, but truth will ultimately win out. In fact, I’ve bet my life on it.

The right of idiots to freely speak idiocy is the same right of the wise to speak wisdom – and it’s incumbent on the listerner to distinguish idiocy from wisdom. To stop one is to prospectively harm the right of the other. Catch your loud opponent in a lie, an prove him wrong before God and the public. But don’t muzzle him – lest you too be muzzled.

Magna est veritas, et prevalebit.

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I don’t really want to argue, but IMHO this isn’t the point of freedom of expression, or at least it shouldn’t be. I’ve heard it said “you must take the bad with the good”. But I think free speech is important in and of itself, not just as a tool for making sure you get the “good”. Even if you could muzzle the other guy with no danger whatsoever of you being muzzled, I think it would be a bad idea.

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I agree with what you’ve said, Priam, but I guess out of a sense of balance I feel compelled to write about the point of view of the Student’s Union on my university on this issue (as this is one that we’ve recently had to face here - students were verbally attacked, accosted and ridiculed by members of Exodus while trying to go about their business, and a speaker was invited onto campus by a religious organisation to give a presentation about their beliefs… admittedly a fundamental difference was that anyone who purported to oppose the opinion of the speaker was not allowed into the meeting, and anyone who expressed dissent during the meeting was ejected by security so there was no freedom of speech). I should also add that this is Australia so the law about freedom of speech is different, and it’s also a lot harder to be heard in the public domain as a queer person. Queer is considered a dirty word here - you can’t even get it printed in the paper.

Anyways.
The left-wing student’s union at my university argues as follows for not supporting the free speech of Exodus on our university campus:
Exodus are a powerful, religious organisation. They have many ways of spreading their ideas as such, because they are a large religious organisation to which our society gives respect. They have the power to publish articles in the media, to get television coverage, to spread their doctrine in churches and to members of parliament. They have a lot of power and space to spread their argument.
Queer people are oppressed by society in many ways, and don’t have spaces to express their opinion and point of view about these issues like Exodus does. Therefore, a space where Queer people can safely give their opinion, point of view and express themselves unhindered is very rare, and in the interest of redressing the balance, they wish our university campus to be like that.

Free speech is rarely free. There will always be some whose voices will be heard much louder than others. If that’s the case, then isn’t it affirming equal access to the airwaves (so to speak) to prioritise some voices which are at risk of being silenced, in some spaces?

For these reasons, they believe the voices of queers should be prioritised over the voices of Exodus members (who don’t seem to be especially interested in free speech) on our campus.

Just to reiterate, I agree with Priam. This is the alternative view point I have heard.

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RE: your alternative view, phraser

First, I would say verbal harrassment of bystanders is not covered under freedom of expression and any who would do so should have their head smacked a bit in hopes common sense enters therein.

Secondly, to my mind its similar (although not perfectly analogous) to the rich kid whose parents bought him a shiny new bike and the poor kid who didn’t get one. Sure the poor kid is gonna be upset by this inequitable solution but the answer isn’t to take away the rich kid’s bicycle. Similarly, just because someone has more outlets to get heard doesn’t mean you take the outlets away… you find ways to get into those outlets as well or outlets they have not reached. If they break no rules in doing so and if they have the same right to free expression, it is wrong not to let them speak.

Thirdly, so what if they play that way? I thought the point was we have the truth on our side, the facts on our side, our honest lives on our side. If we have all that and they don’t, why should we play the dirty game they’re playing? We don’t need to. Let them, indeed invite them to come speak. Know your facts, present your facts, and rebut their lies there and then. Only those without ground need silence their opposition. Those with ground to stand on should revel in their opposition, knowing in the end they will most likely win out. Just my humble opinion after two glasses of very tasty mulled wine.

P.S: I do realize you’re simply playing devil’s advocate,** phraser**. No worries and it’d be a boring world if everyone nodded and agreed with me.

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[devil’s advocate hat on]
I think the point the student’s union at my school was making was that we couldn’t rebut their lies then and there - they had security and wouldn’t let us attend their so-called public meeting. (We handed out leaflets outside until the police made us leave) If anyone questioned their opinion at the meeting, private security guards evicted them. The meeting was held in a college (a religious on-campus residence) where sexual-orientation related suicides and bashings had occurred, and students living there were “strongly encouraged” to attend. Despite our best efforts, Queer department representatives have been unable to even meet with college leaders, let alone provide un-religiously-biased information to students there.

I guess what (as devil’s advocate) I am saying is, I agree with your opinion, but it’s not a perfect world where we are always able to stand up and combat fiction with truth, because sometimes those spreading the lies are much bigger and stronger, have no morals in this area, and are able to squash us easily. Which is, of course, why the arguments opposing the freedom of large hate inciting groups having more access to speaking platforms in the world exist. In a perfect world we wouldn’t have that problem - people would respect the alternative viewpoints of others, and welcome this kind of debate, thus negating the need for any attempt to make sure that any group that is less powerful is heard.

[devil’s advocate hat off]

I’d rather slog it out in honest debate with them, myself.

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Now that’s an easy rebut :slight_smile:

No its not a perfect world, but as I mentioned in the article (I think. I just woke up here) every time we play their game we simply toss more logs onto the fire of their martyr complex. You shut them down and they can crow to the heavens about the evil homosexual agenda and wave the incident in the air for years. Admittedly, they’d probably crow to the heavens anyway but at least they’d have no proof.

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LGBT people should never oppress free speech, but that does not mean that they are hypocrites if they don’t actively fight for speech that goes against what they believe. LGBT, no matter how you arrange the letters, does not = ACLU. Why should anyone actively support speech they don’t believe in? Let the Exodus clowns fight their own battles, and the LGBT movement can fight theirs.

I don’t see any hypocrisy in the scenario as you described. Indeed, I think the bigger hypocrites are those who would actively fight for their right to speak and even invite them to the university, for the sole purpose of then mocking their speech and disrespecting them.