Author Question: Many free speech controversies over the years have involved art that is offensive to some ... (Read 22 times)

krzymel · **on:** Jun 19, 2018

Many free speech controversies over the years have involved art that is offensive to some
religions. Communication, whether in spoken or written speech or a behavior that is considered
insulting, degrading, or contemptuous of a god or a form of religion, is called blasphemy. In the
United States, the U.S. Supreme Court declared for the first time that blasphemy is protected
speech under the First Amendment in 1952 in a decision called Joseph Burstyn, Inc. v. Wilson.
A film by the great Italian movie director Roberto Rossellini called The Miracle applied to the
state of New York for the license then required for commercial showing of any film. The state
prohibited licensing of any film considered sacrilegious, which the New York courts defined as
meaning that no religion. . . shall be treated with contempt, mockery, scorn and ridicule. The
Supreme Court struck down that law and said for the first time that films are protected speech
under the First Amendment. The court was concerned that giving so much power to a
government censor might cross the Constitutions guarantee of a separation of church and
state. The Court, while noting that free speech is not an absolute right, said that It is not the
business of government in our nation to suppress real or imagined attacks upon a particular
religious doctrine.
Ireland recently adopted a blasphemy law, while England and Wales abolished theirs in
2008. Australia has a ban on blasphemy on the books, but has not prosecuted anyone under it
since 1919. Canada includes a crime of blasphemous libel in its Criminal Code, but that is in
apparent conflict with its guarantees of free speech, and it is unclear whether the Criminal code
provision would actually be enforced today.
For each of the examples below, search the Web for images of the work. Do you believe
the work is blasphemous? Should it be censored, despite legal free speech protections? Using
ethical theories in this chapter, develop arguments in favor of and opposed to censorship. Then
consider the ethical obligations of the presenter to display the work or keep it from public
display.

What will be an ideal response?

Question 2

The Turner Diaries were published in 1978 by William Pierce under the pseudonym Andrew
MacDonald. Pierce, who died in 2002, had been a founder of a neo-Nazi group called National
Alliance. The novel is a fictionalized account of a white-supremacist, Earl Turner, who attacks
the United States with special hatred for blacks and Jews. The book gained special notoriety
when it was learned that Timothy McVeigh, the convicted and executed terrorist who blew up
the Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City in 1995, had a copy in his car. It had also been
influential on a neo-Nazi named Bob Matthews who murdered a Jewish radio talk show host
Alan Berg a decade before the Oklahoma City bombings.

What will be an ideal response?

robbielu01 · **Reply #1 on:** Jun 19, 2018

Answer to Question 1

1. The film The Miracle, which some considered blasphemous to the Roman Catholic
Church
2. Chris Ofili is a Nigerian-British artist who often works with cow dung as a material in his
paintings. His The Holy Virgin Mary was exhibited at the Brooklyn Museum of Art in 1999
as part of the exhibit called Sensation, originally organized by the Tate Museum in
London. Then-Mayor Rudolph Giuliani attacked the painting as blasphemous and
threatened to withdraw the Museum's city funding, but the Museum sued and won.
3. Andres Serrano created a photograph of a crucifix in a jar of yellow liquid, which people
presume was urine. The work, called Piss Christ, was widely criticized as blasphemous
to the Catholic Church.
4. In 2005 a Danish newspaper published cartoons depicting the face of Muhammad which
triggered violent protests in Muslim communities in many countries. The Muslim religion
prohibits the display of any images of Muhammad, let alone images which most consider
critical and offensive.

Answer to Question 2

1. If The Turner Diaries can be shown to be a direct causal link to such violent acts as the
Berg murder and the Oklahoma City bombings, should the book be censored or banned
from distribution by the government? If that causal link can be demonstrated, should
victims be allowed to sue the author's estate for damages? How close and demonstrable
should that causal link be for these consequences (censorship, damages) to be
justified? If you are a bookstore owner, do you have an ethical obligation not to sell
books such as The Turner Diaries that you suspect might lead someone to commit
violent acts?
2. Canada has a criminal law that prohibits, through spoken or written words, advocating
genocide or publicly inciting hatred. It also has customs laws that prohibit importing hate
propaganda, including The Turner Diaries. When customers of Amazon.com and
BarnesandNoble.com started purchasing banned books through the Internet, the
Canadian Green Party complained, but the customs officials said they had no authority
to regulate commerce over the Internet. Officials of the Green Party in Canada
questioned the moral and ethical basis of Amazon's decision to profit from their
distribution. Should the United States adopt a criminal law modeled after the Canadian
ban on words advocating genocide or publicly inciting hatred? Analyze such a law using
the ethical reasoning tools in this chapter. Do Internet companies such as Amazon.com
have an ethical obligation to refuse to sell such books as The Turner Diaries? Analyze
the ethical arguments for and against such an obligation.
3. In 2000, eBay, the on-line auction site, agreed to prohibit sales of items promoting hate,
such as material from the Ku Klux Klan and the Aryan Nation. This ban came after
enormous public pressure on eBay, but those organizations still have their own sites on
the Internet where such things are sold. Do Internet sites such as eBay have an ethical
obligation not to permit sales of hate material? Should the government shut down
Internet sites promoting hate? What steps should concerned citizens take in response to
these sites?