Your right to say it

There is a quotation often attributed to Voltaire, but actually written by his biographer, Evelyn Beatrice Hall. Like so many women, she has been overlooked while her words were credited to a more famous man. Describing Voltaire's free speech absolutism, Hall wrote: "I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it."

Several years ago I expressed repugnance at a depiction of Barack (then President) Obama, hanged by a noose. It was sold on T-shirts in the U.S.A. One of my British friends said, “Here, that would be illegal.”

The First Amendment, and the breadth of its protection of speech, does not exist outside the U.S. But even among Americans, I have started wondering if freedom of speech, in its broadest sense, is heretical. I do not question how revolting the image described above is. I question whose interests are served by banning, or otherwise censoring, speech. 

A couple of recent examples in Britain illustrate what I mean. There was the case of an actress who was fired from a production of The Color Purple. This woman’s participation had been protested by some because, in her private life, she’d expressed traditional Christian views that homosexuality is wrong.

Businesses can fire at a lower threshold than criminality, but the company’s justification for their decision is interesting, and has come up in other instances. That is, because the woman held this out-of-date view (with which we are all too familiar), she must be expected to discriminate against LGBT people with whom she worked, and this must not be allowed.

She denied that she mistreated anyone, and personally, I don’t see how someone could have a career in theatre without getting along with queers. What made matters worse, however, was that she was portraying a character who has a same-sex relationship and, thus, is claimed by the LGBT people complaining. The actress disputed the validity of this objection, and she has a point: actors must, if they are any good, be able to portray characters who act in ways they wouldn’t approve of in real life. It isn’t illegal to be foolish; Kyrie Irving claims to believe that the sun revolves around the earth, but that doesn’t make him a bad basketball player.

To be clear, this was a business decision and businesses frequently change their minds if they think a decision of theirs is going to be unpopular. What I’m interested in is why this view was unacceptable when, as much as some Christians (including me) disagree with it, it remains the view of most Christians on earth, as of most Muslims on earth. What if this actress had been Muslim, and expressed her disapproval of homosexuality from the point of view of Islam? Would she still have less of a right to express her religious belief than we have to be protected from it? 

I don't know the answer to this question, but it’s worth raising. Who decides which things we are not allowed to say, when we all object to each other? When pressed about one of his comments, comparing some Muslim women to letterboxes, Boris Johnson said that he’d been defending the right of all women in Britain to wear what they please. I may mock his cynicism, but there are always tradeoffs. Rights crash into other rights; that’s why they need protecting in the first place.

In response to the prime minister’s comments, someone representing a site called If We Did It quite rightly made the point that ordinary people would not get away with saying the offensive things that politicians do. I, however, draw a somewhat different conclusion from this: limits on free speech increase the disparity between those in power, who enforce (or choose not to enforce) these laws, and the rest of us. Far from eliminating hate speech from the public square, the government places inhibitions on everybody else, while the most powerful people get off scot free.

This should alarm us, especially if we are members of minority or historically marginalized groups. A case just ruled on involved a man who was visited at his workplace by police to “check your thinking.” The issue was some tweets of his that had offended a transgender person, who complained to the police. The tweets were recorded by the police, not as a crime, but as a “hate incident.”

The judge, coincidentally named Mr. Justice Knowles, stated that as the man had done nothing criminal, there was no reason for the police to be investigating him. Furthermore, “The effect of the police turning up at [the claimant’s] place of work because of his political opinions must not be underestimated. To do so would be to undervalue a cardinal democratic freedom. In this country we have never had a Cheka, a Gestapo or a Stasi. We have never lived in an Orwellian society.” 

This is far from the only case of its kind in Britain. A woman lost her job long ago, for stating that biological sex is fixed and unchangeable. Like the actress, she wasn’t prosecuted, but fired. Not because she had actually persecuted or discriminated against any other person, but because given her views, she might.

To the extent that her views mean people shouldn't express their gender however they want to, I do not share them. I hope it is clear that defending someone’s right of expression is not the same as defending the expressions themselves. I, myself, have been misgendered countless times all my life, despite being perfectly happy with my gender from birth. I hear the same thing from other women, straight and gay, young and grey-haired. This is not just an issue for trans people, and I couldn’t be more sympathetic. 

I deplore vile speech. I deplore the climate that breeds hatred and violence towards vulnerable people. But we must ask who is really being protected by curbs on free speech. Not powerful people: from the prime minister on down, they regularly spout not only offensive but unquestionably racist rhetoric, with no consequences whatever, even political. They are not in the slightest intimidated by the chilling effect of laws or policies that limit free speech. Who is to decide next what is prohibited? Not marginalized people.

Writing anything on a subject like this risks upset; some people seem to delight in offending and goading others. That is never my intention. I am simply, fundamentally aware that any power we entrust to powerful forces can be turned against our speech as easily as anybody else’s. The point is not that trans- or Islamo- or any other kind of phobia is not important, but that freedom of expression is.

If I only think people are free to say things I already agree with, that’s easy. Who’s to persuade me? And who’s to defend my right to say something that may offend someone else?

Persuading people to think differently is just that—persuasion. More free expression, not less. Meanwhile, if we want less offensive speech, that’s a matter of manners. Just because you think something doesn’t always mean you have to say it, to people or in public. If you must make snide observations, make them somewhere else, when you’re alone with your friends. 

That’s what we did before social media. Everybody didn’t need to follow what we thought about every subject. Twitter is a cesspit. It’s rude, even offensive, but it shouldn’t be illegal. Are we really going to complain about the police being too stretched to do their jobs, while they’re phoning people up and asking them to tone down their tweets?

In his ruling Mr Justice Knowles said: "…free speech includes not only the inoffensive, but the irritating, the contentious, the eccentric, the heretical, the unwelcome and the provocative, and that the freedom only to speak inoffensively is not worth having.”