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 peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.
This is pretty straight forward to me. The king outlawed the Catholic Church and made a new religion behind the name of the Church of England. In the new United States all person have the right to freely exercise their right to their religion and the Government cannot make laws to establish or disestablish the right to do as we darn well please.
The second half of that amendment goes on to address the freedom of the press and free speech. People could be put to death or at least imprisoned for speeches against the king and the government in a lot of countries.
I have listened to a bunch of discussions about where free speech should be limited. The only thing I have ever heard that I understood was that you can't holler "Fire" in a crowded theater if there isn't any fire. The rest of the limits begins to start us down the slippery slope.
Here in the heartland we have Fred Phelps and his Westboro Baptist Church aka God hates Fags.com. He pickets the funerals of Soldiers because he preaches that the soldiers died to support our Government and everyone knows about "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" We are all going to hell because of that. He feels he is called to tell us that anyone that practices and supports homosexuality is doomed to die and God won't save you. Talk about walking the fine line. He feels that his religion calls for him to do this and he is petitioning his Government with a grievance he feels wrong. Crap! I hate this but I'm not sure where the slippery slope starts and stops. Oh well, Article II later.
MUD
Sometimes I wish someone would off that guy, but then he'd probably just become a martyr to his deranged congregation. I prefer to ignore him and I wish the media would too. Clearly they thrive on media attention.
ReplyDeleteNow, I've got a question about this here First Amendment. When we went to Ohio in October, we saw signs all through Missouri for a certain adult super store. One of the billboards really cracked me up. It said, "(Name of store), defending your First Amendment rights." I'm still a little baffled as to how these folks are defending my First Amendment rights, but okay. I tried to get a picture of that billboard as we were speeding down the highway, but it didn't turn out.
It isn't free speech unless you hate at your core the message and yet let it be said (Paraphrase of Larry Flint, Hustler Magazine) MUD
ReplyDelete