This seems to be more of a General Questions topic than a Great Debate.
I refer you to the Supreme Court caselaw on the First Amendment. You’ll find just about everything you need to know there.
Here’s a good source on what the First Amendment does and does not do:
The Framers of the Constitution were worried that some would take things that way, which is why they added the Ninth Amendment:
The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.
Just because it’s speech doesn’t mean it’s per se protected. Fraudulent advertising is not protected speech. In my humble opinion, proselytizing should not be protected speech either, at least not until one of the religions is proven to be the right one. Then that one, I suppose, can proselytize. I started a thread on this very topic a while back and got rammed for not being sensitive to the freedom of speech and freedom of religion of the proselytizers. Neither freedom of speech nor freedom of religion are absolute. Try getting permission to smoke pot for your religoius beliefs and see what happens to you.
Proselytizing is no different than going door to door trying to sign up people for your little pyramid scheme. You have the right to be and believe what ever religion you want. You should not have the right to spread it. Religion is evil; religions that believe in recruiting other members are the sole bane of humanity. They are against public policy and should not be permitted any more than fraudulent advertising or shooting abortion doctors for Jesus.
So, Kalt, by saying religion is false, aren’t you proselytizing for atheism? Do you really want the government to be determining the truth or falsity of atheism, and hence the “fraudulence” of atheistic arguments made in public debate?
Nope. I’m not saying the government should dictate what religious/nonreligious beliefs are true or false, just control proselytizing. They should control spam too. Establish a national opt-in list. If you want people to convert you, put your name on the opt-in list. Otherwise you’re off-limits. Religious advertising is no more protected than advertising for a new home mortgage.
I wasn’t saying religion is fraudulent, I was just using the example of fraudulent speech to show that not all speech is protected under the First Amendment. Proselytory religions are pyramid schemes, though. Join, get saved, and get other people to join, ad nauseum.
Um…I don’t see the contradiction between the Ninth and what SenorBeef said.
Huh?
The amendment says just because it specifically enumerates protection for some rights doesn’t mean that those are the only rights protected. How does that contradict what I said?
Which way do you think I’m taking the Constitution that the founders were afraid of?
Are you saying that I’m wrong, and that the Constitution is specifically meant to list what we could and could not do?
Can’t you see that I was agreeing with what you said?
No. I’m not saying it was meant to list everything that we can do. Why else would I drum out the 9th amendment? The amendment was added for the purpose of preventing people from misinterpreting the rights granted to be the only rights we have.
Ah. I see. Your post was worded so that it sounded like “the people who would see it that way” were folks like SenorBeef.
Does the Constitution grant us the right to smile, or breathe air, or practice the art of self love in the shower?
Well, it doesn’t specifically say that. But I’m pretty sure that these are things which would fall under 9th amendment protection.
Um…right. I think we are all in agreement here on that point.
My mistake - I saw the bottom post first, by Neurotik, saying that what you said didn’t contradict me. So I looked up looking for the post that contradicted me - and I automatically read what you said to mean you thought the way I was looking at it was what the framers were afraid of.
Simple miscommunication. Now I must commit ritualistic suicide.
Bone to pick with the thread title, then onto some helpful cites…
The Constitution, specifically the Bill of Rights, is not about permitting things, it’s about forbidding things. The Bill of Rights lists various things that the Congress of the federal government is forbidden from doing. The 14th Amendment extends many of those provisions to forbid the state governments from taking certain actions. So the Bill of Rights does not have to say “proselytizing is permitted”, rather it says that Congress either is or is not forbidden to pass a law restricting it.
I’m no expert on constitutional law, but I know the fundamentals of property law. The most basic tenet of property law is the “right to exclude”, removing people from your property or preventing them from entering it. If it’s proselytizing on public property that you abhor, then you’re just going to have to live with it. Such speech can be limited somewhat, though.
Relevant caselaw:
Schenk v. U.S., 249 U.S. 47 (1919)…the historic case that sided with the government and found free speech not to be an absolute right, and the Sedition Act of 1918 to be constitutional. Opinion written by the famous Justice Oliver Holmes.
Terminiello v. Chicago, 337 U.S. 1 (1949)…narrowed previous case, gives us this basic guideline from Justice Douglas’ opinion:
Freedom of speech isn’t even *that *broad. There are many types of speech which are not “free” (sorry to ruin your image of America). Slander, libel, copyright infringement (I’m not free to copy your book, even though doing so is “speech”), fraud, “fighting words,” revealing national secrets, revealing trade secrets, revealing any information under protective order, soliciting a crime, perjury, suborning perjury, and of course my favorite - yelling fire in a crowded theater. The list goes on and on. If you think citing the first amendment will get you off the hook for any of the aforementioned crimes/torts, think again.
Free speech is a great thing, but it’s so far from absolute that it’s the exception, not the rule. Proselytizing serves absolutely no public good (quite the opposite, in fact). It should be highly regulated. Even an opt-out list is not good enough; an opt-in list would be much more effective.
Just wanted to offer a handy retort not comment on constitutional relevance. Two young fundamentalists come to my door attempting to save my soul,sweet they were, barely legal. When I offered to have them in for a threesome on the floor, they turned and ran. That day I truly enjoyed my freedom of speech.
No, you aren’t really ruining our image. For purposes of this discussion, we are talking about freedom to advocate ideas, not freedom to lie under oath or freedom to shout “FIRE!” in a crowded theater. Introducting these tangential things are nothing but a red herring to detract from the real issues.
If you are trying to say we don’t have freedom of speech because we can’t photocopy the contents of a Novel and give them away for free (copyright infringement), or go on TV and call an innocent person a child molester (slander), or can’t go to Iraq and tell Saddam our nuclear launch codes (national security), I’m not buying it.
I think saying “Vote Republican” does absolutely no public good. In fact, it distresses and annoys me greatly to hear that. But once I try to take away YOUR right to go around advocating the Republican party (or whatever party you are in favor in), it just opens up a huge slippery slope that lets us ban whatever speech is unpopular at the time.
If we did that, than only popular accepted religious beliefs could be spread. That isn’t free by any means.
You are just as free as a Jehovah’s Witness to knock on doors and convert people to your beliefs, even if your belief is Atheism.
This is a bit long, but I think this quote from the Supreme Court is enlightening. This opinion pertains to a different issue than religious proseltyzing, but nevertheless it is still pertinant to this discussion. HUSTLER MAGAZINE v. FALWELL, 485 U.S. 46 (1988):
Excellent citation, Blalron.
Okay, I should have worded the question better (or less concisely: the Constitution could “allow” stuff or it could “prohibit the government from banning” stuff. Practically, it works out pretty much the same.) The distinction between banned speech and permitted speech seems arbitrary, though, at this point. As Kalt notes, they’re finding exceptions to free speech all over the place, and I don’t get why the absolute freedom to 'believe" as you choose is interfered with by a prohibition on the speech.
But the point is that a restriction on speech is problematic whether or not it infringes freedom of belief; the constitution does not favour restriction on speech per se and, to attack a restriction as unconsitutional, it is not necessary to show that the prohibited speech amounts to the exercise of religion.
Put it this way. Every law restricting freedom of speech is constitutionally questionable. If the law is challenged, the onus is on the government to justify the restriction by reference to some value which the justices consider sufficiently important to warrant the restriction. “I don’t like/don’t agree with what is being said” is never an acceptable justification.
So, to those who would restrict proselytising, what is the justification which would support the restriction? Bear in mind that the restriction must be proportional to the justification (e.g. the justification for a law requiring silence in libraries would not support a law requiring silence in all academic and educational institutions).