09-07-2017, 01:59 PM
(This post was last modified: 09-07-2017, 03:37 PM by Bob Butler 54.)
(09-07-2017, 11:48 AM)pbrower2a Wrote: Humiliation of people on grounds of race, religion, ethnicity, gender, or sexual orientation is not a right. Freedom of speech does not mean the right to a pliant audience and does not deny one the right to avoid speaking.
Yep. Pretty much with you there.
I also spent a bit of time looking up things like Massachusetts hate crimes and harassment in general. Let's just say the idea that free speech blocks hate crimes is not a basic principle of US law.
The Ma Legislature, Section 43A. Wrote:(a) Whoever willfully and maliciously engages in a knowing pattern of conduct or series of acts over a period of time directed at a specific person, which seriously alarms that person and would cause a reasonable person to suffer substantial emotional distress, shall be guilty of the crime of criminal harassment and shall be punished by imprisonment in a house of correction for not more than 2 1/2 years or by a fine of not more than $1,000, or by both such fine and imprisonment. The conduct or acts described in this paragraph shall include, but not be limited to, conduct or acts conducted by mail or by use of a telephonic or telecommunication device or electronic communication device including, but not limited to, any device that transfers signs, signals, writing, images, sounds, data or intelligence of any nature transmitted in whole or in part by a wire, radio, electromagnetic, photo-electronic or photo-optical system, including, but not limited to, electronic mail, internet communications, instant messages or facsimile communications.
(b) Whoever, after having been convicted of the crime of criminal harassment, commits a second or subsequent such crime, or whoever commits the crime of criminal harassment having previously been convicted of a violation of section 43, shall be punished by imprisonment in a house of correction for not more than two and one-half years or by imprisonment in the state prison for not more than ten years.
While cakes may not be expressly mentioned, I think they are covered...
Also, just the inclusion of "substantial emotional distress" is at odds with some of the Alt Right's arguments. If one accepts that substantial emotional distress can be inflicted with words, and such is harmful, and negative rights do not guarantee a right to inflict harm, a lot of 'free speech' arguments that supposedly protect verbal harm go away.
That this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom, and that government of the people, by the people, for the people shall not perish from the earth.