Anti-Blasphemy Laws

Some have made the point that we are dealing with blasphemy with regard to the film Innocence of Muslims and the current unrest in the Near East.♠  Over at the Althouse blog we have a post on blasphemy laws in the United States.  Quoting from the blog post:

And here's the 1952 case Joseph Burstyn, Inc. v. Wilson where the Supreme Court struck down a New York law that banned showing "sacrilegious" movies.  New York's highest court had interpreted the statute to mean "that no religion, as that word is understood by the ordinary, reasonable person, shall be treated with contempt, mockery, scorn and ridicule."  The U.S. Supreme Court said:

[T]he state has no legitimate interest in protecting any or all religions from views distasteful to them which is sufficient to justify prior restraints upon the expression of those views.  It is not the business of government in our nation to suppress real or imagined attacks upon a particular religious doctrine, whether they appear in publications, speeches, or motion pictures.

Those stodgy old men (and they were all men) on the US Supreme Court back in 1952, near the height of McCarthyism, said that we don't censor art based upon protecting some religion from being offended.

Again quoting from the blog post, this time about the SCOTUS ruling:

Lawyers even saw fit at that time to argue that movies shouldn't get free-speech protection at all because "their production, distribution, and exhibition is a large-scale business conducted for private profit."

Oh, wait, the President of the United States today argues that corporations don't have free-speech rights, and many Americans, including highly educated lawyers, are saying the Constitution should be amended to delete those rights.

OK, roll out the proposed Constitutional Amendment and run it up the flagpole and lets see who salutes it.  That is the American way.

In the meantime, lets try to avoid Dhimmitude.

Regards  —  Cliff

♠  I hope no one, UN Ambassador Susan Rice excepted, still believes the murder of our Ambassador to Libya wasn't a preplanned action, related to our own use of drones to deal with enemies from a distance.  I excuse Ms Rice because administrations of various shades have had a tendency to hold UN Ambassadors out to dry.

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