free speech

Did you know that in Canada there is something called the human rights commission. It is currently proscuting a columnist named Mark Stein because he wrote something that some Islamists took as being against Islam. They have also convicted a preacher for speaking out against homosexuality and find him several thousand dollars, told him to apologize and not to speak against it again.

Nothing like that would happen here, would it? Well, New Mexico has a human rights commission who has tried a photographer for refusing to photograph and commitment ceremony between two homosexuals. Virginia also has a human rights commission who tried a video copier for refusing to copy homosexual material. New Jersey civil rights organization has removed the tax exempt status of a church for refusing to allow a homosexual couple to use their property for a commitment ceremony.

Maybe we shouldn't be concerned but then again. There are those who wish to restrict speech on college campuses by speech codes. Some politicians desire to bring back the "fairness doctrine" so that talk radio, which would include Christian radio, would have to be balance between both sides. Why are they afraid of free speech?

I find that those who make the loudest noise about rights being taken away under the current administration have no problem taking away, or supporting such things as human rights commissions, to stop speech that is politically incorrect. Judges overrule the people who vote for propositions, others make laws in contrast to the Constitution, yet are support by those who claim that our rights are being removed.

This reminds me of George Orwell's two books, "1984" and "Animal Farm." One commend from the latter is that all are equal but some are more equal than others. Or like the character in Alice in Wonderland, words are what he determines them to be. Words mean something or nothing. If nothing, then how can we trust what anyone says.

As Christians, if we call something a sin because the Bible does, will we be fined, tried, told to be quiet, even imprisoned for our beliefs? I think this is something to think about, especially as the next national election is coming up. For fine soundly words we might be shooting ourselves in the foot. Gaining back lost freedom might be more difficult than we think.