Free Speech and Religious Rights for Me, but NOT for Thee!
Many people need to learn what the First Amendment really says and does
Issue #201 OpEd December 19, 2022
There have been a whole lot of debates and misinformation about “free speech,” “religious freedom,” and the 1st Amendment out there.
Many people think that “free speech” means that they can say anything about anything or anyone without repercussions. No.
Many people also think that “religious freedom” means they can force others to believe and/or exercise their religion only the way they do. No.
There are also people who think that the January 6 rioters and insurrectionists were just “peaceably assembling” and exercising their right to “petition the government for a redress of grievances. No.
The right-wing thinks that the First Amendment applies only to them. Hypocrites.
Let’s see what the First Amendment actually says and means, and discuss the hypocrisy of how the right way misconstrues the rights of all of us per that amendment.
Amendment 1
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people to peaceably assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.
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Freedom of Speech
In the United States, the right to freedom of speech allows individuals to express themselves without government interference or restriction.
The Supreme Court ruled that the government may prohibit some speech that may cause a breach of the peace or cause violence.
When the right-wing talks about “freedom of speech,” they mean that it should only apply to them.
When Colin Kaepernick, the winning quarterback who helped the San Francisco 49ers win Super Bowl and NFC Championships, “took a knee” to protest police brutality against Black people during the playing of the National Anthem before a football game and encouraged other players to do the same, he was fired by the team. He and the other players were called “sons of bitches” by then-President Donald Trump. He won an undisclosed amount from the NFL after he sued them, but remains a free agent who has never been hired by another football team since. It was fine for white football player Tim Tebow to “take a knee” when he said he was “praying” on the field, but not for Black Colin Kaepernick to “take a knee” in protest against police brutality against Black people.
WNBA star and 2-time Olympic Gold Medalist Brittney Griner also occasionally protested police brutality and supported the Black Lives Matter movement. When she was finally released from a Russian prison camp, where she was being held for having two vapes of medically prescribed cannabis oil, many on the right wing said she didn’t deserve to be released because she “hated America” and also said that she should be “grateful the United States” for letting her, an American citizen, live here. The fact that Brittney Griner is Black, gay, and in a loving and long-time same-sex marriage just intensified the hate for her.
But they can say or do anything that harms and threatens others they don’t like, “punish” people virtually or in real life who don’t adhere to what they want, decide that people who don’t agree with them aren’t real Americans, and so on. Then they dare others to call them out.
When people marched peacefully all over the world in support of Black Lives Matter, especially after the murder of George Floyd in 2020, the right-wing called the marchers trouble-makers and lied about the amount of violence that ensued. Yes, there were a few instances of property destruction, but no cities were burned to the ground or anything else remotely like that.
However, the right wing feels that the January 6 rioters and insurrectionists, who stormed the U.S. Capitol, trashed the building, and threatened the lives of lawmakers were just peacefully assembling and they are complaining that those arrested are in jail and call them political prisoners.
Freedom of Religion
The Establishment Clause of the First Amendment prohibits the government from passing legislation to establish an official religion or preferring one religion over another.
That hasn’t stopped right-wing Evangelical Christians from insisting that the United States is a “Christian country,” considering all other religions as false or Satanic, and demanding that everyone worship as they do and adhere to their ideas of Christian morality, even those that are not attributed to Christ, such as homosexuality and abortions.
In the Jewish tradition, for example, it is believed that life begins at first breath (it even says so in the Christian bible), so abortion can’t be “murder” because an embryo or fetus is not alive.
That hasn’t stopped right-wing anti-abortionists from passing laws that give even a zygote or 6-week-old fetus the rights of a “person” and wanting to punish those who give or receive an abortion before viability with jail time or even execution.
Some of those people even want to outlaw birth control.
It’s not about “life,” it is about control over women’s agency.
The Free Exercise Clause of the First Amendment prohibits the government, in most cases, from interfering with a person’s practice of their religion.
Many right-wing Evangelical Christians feel that the Free Exercise Clause gives them the right to spread hate against and discriminate against others who do not believe as they do, especially LGBTA+, same-sex couples, Muslims, and Jewish people.
They also believe that their bible, and not the actual Constitution should be the law of the land, even though the First Amendment says just the opposite.
My Opinions
There are some people in America who feel that only their beliefs and their rules are valid, regardless of what the Constitution says. These same people feel that only they get to decide who are “real Americans.”
Those of us who, on the other hand, believe that America is supposed to be diverse and is supposed to ensure that everyone has the same rights and the same opportunities as everyone else will have to continue fighting to make the United States the “more perfect union” it has promised it would be for almost 250 years.
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