January 16, 2008...8:46 pm
The High and Holy Right Not to be Offended, by Steve Farrell
Missing the Mark With Religion, Part 9
If you want to watch human reason descend to its lowest form, tune in and observe the finger-wagging parade of ‘experts’ on the evening news who, with straight faces and the utmost dignity, mouth such nonsense as the belief that atheists, agnostics and every other sort of ‘other’ have an unalienable right “not to be offended” by Christians and Jews.
An unalienable right “NOT TO BE OFFENDED”?! Such a right was defended on “The O’Reilly Factor” not too long ago - to which Bill O’Reilly astutely pointed out that 75 percent of Americans are equally offended by an ACLU and a Supreme Court which assumes that monuments to the faith of our forefathers and the founding influences upon which this nation’s laws were written cannot be displayed in public places.
“What about THEIR right not to be offended?” Mr. O’Reilly asked.
The guest countered that the purpose of the First Amendment was to protect minority rights. “But what about the rights of the majority?” Mr. O’Reilly countered.
Excellent counter-point, but the bigger issue Bill O’Reilly was raising is that such a ‘right’ that would impose such ridiculous limits on religious speech sounds like a rerun of the kind of hostility toward religion that existed under Stalin and Hitler. Besides, someone will always be offended no matter how perfect the law, how pure the intentions of its framers, how smooth the delivery of its defenders. Even of the one perfect man, we read that endless volumes could be published if all the words that were ever spoken against him were put in print.
Truth is, they are still writing those books, some of them written by card-carrying members of the ACLU.
Mr. O’Reilly, to his credit, moved passed his guest’s truly inane ‘It’s unconstitutional to offend anyone!’ claim, and reasoned - as he often has - that he “can’t see where anyone’s rights are being trampled on here.”
“Rights being trampled upon” is an entirely different and legitimate issue, something a heck of a lot more substantial than being “offended.”
As this writer has discussed in the past, one’s religious rights are not violated unless one of the following occurs to an individual as a result of his faith:
- He is tried on his right of property or life.
- He is deprived of his worldly goods (either by fine or tax to support a ministry or minister against his will).
- He is put in jeopardy of life or limb or has actual physical punishment inflicted upon him.
- He is proscribed in the spiritual privileges of his faith.
- He is denied the voting franchise, the right to hold public office, or any other individual rights as a result of his faith, and/or
- He is the victim of favoritism before the law in the form of greater public privileges or rights being bestowed upon members of another congregation.
When these things happen, that’s when rights are being trampled. As to the above-mentioned denial of the right to hold public office because of religious belief, isn’t that what recently happened to Judge Moore in Alabama - a man who, thanks to the judicial activism of a federal judge (who ordered Moore to tear down a Ten Commandments monument that the people, the state law of Alabama and Judge Moore upheld as the God-given foundation of the laws of the Great State of Alabama and the United States), was ousted from office?
And isn’t this what occurs any time a judge is filibustered, or backed into a corner, and publicly denounced as “dangerous,” by the U.S. Senate for not worshipping man’s law more than he worships the Higher Law - the very Higher Law the Founding Fathers believed to be the foundation of the Unalienable Rights judges are sworn (before God) to uphold?
Millions of Americans think so. They believe, as many of you do, that creating and protecting a high and holy right ‘not to be offended’ by the free expression of the religious beliefs of others, in public and in private, is an extreme position that opens the door to every sort of legal abuse by revolutionaries, opportunists and their unwary minions, partisans and fans.
For how can freedom of religion survive when freedom of speech and freedom of the press are limited by a state-imposed politically correct standard of ‘neutral,’ ‘inoffensive’ language? Left unchecked, such a right would take religious liberty down and out for the count, and lead to the creation of a future High and Mighty Religious Thought Police. Let’s not go there.
So here’s the truth: Freedom of speech and freedom of the press are vital to freedom of religion. Religious freedom cannot exist without them. Therefore, the restrictive right ‘not to be offended,’ even used in the name of protecting religious liberty, never did and never should exist. Defending such a right misses the mark about religion in public life - and ought to be roundly defeated.
If any of us have been deceived on this point, it’s time to relearn American history, American law, and American government from the Founders’ perspective, not from public school textbooks that have banned the Founders’ religious, moral, commonsense perspective from their pages. And once relearned, to put on our thinking caps.
That’s my opinion - and I believe I’m right.
Latter-day Center for Moral Liberalism President, Steve Farrell, is a pundit with America’s News Page, Silver Eddy Award Winner, NewsMax.com, associate professor of political economy at George Wythe College, and the author of the highly praised inspirational novel about faith and family, “Dark Rose.”
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