Voltaire probably never said, “I do not agree with what you have to say, but I’ll defend to the death your right to say it.” It’s just as well. The quote will be obsolete soon enough. Free speech is losing its defenders and the offended are gaining ground. Not content to enter the marketplace of ideas confident in their own powers of persuasion, the offended have opted for a more expedient option: coercion.
Coercion takes many forms, from legal intimidation to the point of a gun. Radical Islamists murdered journalists at the French satirical newspaper Charlie Hebdo for its portrayal of their prophet. Within a week, and without any sense of irony, the French government arrested 54 people for hate speech, insulting religious beliefs, or declaring support for the murderers. Government prohibition of offensive speech in France is not unprecedented. France is one of several European countries where it is illegal to deny the Holocaust.
Meanwhile, in Saudi Arabia, blogger Raif Badawi on Jan. 9 received the first 50 lashes of 1,000 after being convicted of insulting Islam. He also faces 10 years in prison. The government didn’t like his Free Saudi Liberal Network blog, which critiqued Saudi institutions and discussed the compatibility of Islam and liberalism.
Coercion need not be violent to be effective. Consider the case of Marjorie Silva, owner of Denver’s Azucar Bakery. Last year, customer Bill Jack requested several Bible-shaped cakes iced with words like “God hates gays.” Silva quite understandably refused. The customer filed a complaint with the Civil Rights division of the Department of Regulatory Agencies for religious discrimination. The case could proceed to the Colorado Civil Rights Commission.
Presumably Jack is trying to make a point, however offensively. If the government can compel a person to violate his conscience and participate in speech with which he disagrees, as it did in another bakery case, the government can force Silva to make the cake. Ideally, the commission will instead recognize the injustice in both cases and change its ways.
The other case occurred last year when the Colorado Civil Rights Commission ruled against Jack Phillips of Masterpiece Bakery. Phillips, who does not decorate cakes with messages that are inconsistent with his faith, declined to make a same-sex wedding cake.
The case has been appealed to the Colorado Court of Appeals. As long as the ruling stands, however, Phillips must choose between making wedding cakes with messages he opposes or not making wedding cakes at all. In choosing the latter, he has lost business and doing what he loves. The government has effectively silenced this American.
Earlier this month, a court brief revealed that Diann Rice, a member of the commission, had said, “Freedom of religion and religion has been used to justify all kinds of discrimination throughout history, whether it be slavery, whether it be the Holocaust.”
The travesty isn’t that a government commissioner could be so ignorant of history (Nazis were atheists who despised religion and most abolitionists were Christians). The travesty is that government can determine whether or not a baker can refuse to design a cake that is offensive to him or her. Government should neither coerce individuals into silence nor compel them to speak.
Likewise, individuals do not have the right by gun or by government to silence others. They must find a voice of their own.
Krista Kafer (tokrista@ ) is co-host of “Kelley and Company” from 1 to 4 p.m. on 710 KNUS.
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