Monday, August 26, 2019
#FREESPEECH IN THE NEWS: August 26, 2019
As the Citadel of Free Speech here in Cleveland, we work to protect and promote the basis of our democracy by sharing related stories, commentary, and opinions on free speech in the 21st century. Here's what's making the news – and what you should know about – in the past week.
1.) Blasphemy laws are quietly vanishing in liberal democracies
Until last month, a Greek citizen could be jailed for up to two years for “publicly and maliciously blaspheming” against God, against the Greek Orthodox church or “any other permitted religion.” In one of its last acts before losing an election, a leftist government quietly dropped this article as part of a revision of the criminal code.
The law had not fallen into disuse; a man had been sentenced to a ten-month term in 2012 for facetiously comparing a famous monk to a pasta dish. It took him five years to appeal and clear his name. (Short prison terms can generally be bought off in Greece, so the humourist faced little risk of going to jail. But the case stirred strong emotions.)
Campaigners for free speech are worried by the rise in the seductive but dangerous notion that people have a right not to be offended. Kenan Malik, a British writer, has argued that in the Western world, secular notions of “offence” and the protection of different communities’ feelings are taking the place of blasphemy laws explicitly based on religion.
2.) Federal judge rules in favor of A-State in free speech case
The 1st Amendment and in particular, free speech, is not absolute, with rules created by state and local governments, making the exercise of free speech not absolute in certain cases, a federal judge ruled Wednesday.
United States District Judge J. Leon Holmes ruled in favor of Arkansas State University on the claims of Turning Point USA at Arkansas State University and Ashlyn Hoggard, dismissing the complaint of the group and Hoggard with prejudice.
Both Turning Point USA at Arkansas State University and Hoggard challenged a policy by the university involving free speech and free expression zones on campus, saying the policy violated the 1st Amendment. In the 29-page ruling, Holmes said the 1st Amendment, while protecting speech, does not create an absolute power on the issue.
3.) Church: Free speech protects decision to fire teacher
The city of Norfolk, Virginia, is claiming in a lawsuit that its free speech rights are being violated because a state law won’t let it remove an 80-foot (24-meter) Confederate monument from its downtown.
Norfolk’s lawsuit employs a relatively novel and untested legal strategy in the federal court system for trying to remove a Confederate monument, legal experts say. The main legal question in this case is whether cities have free speech rights.
The city filed suit Monday in a U.S. District Court in Norfolk and targets a Virginia law that prevents the removal of war memorials. The suit claims infringement of the First Amendment because the city is being forced to project a message it no longer supports.
