Free Speech Or Incitement?

An ill-conceived effort by two Connecticut lawmakers to legislate fundamental changes in the way the Catholic church administers parish finances died a well-deserved and ignominious death last March, when the plan was dropped in the face of protests by thousands of the faithful at a church-sponsored rally in Hartford. The only redeeming value of the short-lived proposal is that months later it has inspired a careful rereading of the First Amendment by bureaucrats and criminal justice officials to help them map the tricky terrain between Constitutional rights and responsibilities.

Last week, the state’s ethics agency dropped an investigation of the Diocese of Bridgeport at the urging of state Attorney General Richard Blumenthal. The ethics panel was looking into whether the diocese violated state laws against unregistered lobbying of lawmakers in its role as organizer of the protests in Hartford earlier in the year. Mr Blumenthal expressed “profound and serious constitutional concerns” over the attempt by the state ethics bureaucracy to regulate church activities. Even a cursory reading of the First Amendment seems to make the case: Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

Religion. Speech. Redress. In this country, you can’t mess with these things, no matter what your title. Or can you?

Next week a New Jersey man is due in Hartford Superior Court for a hearing on felony charges of inciting injury to persons. The accused, a 47-year-old former radio talk show host, was incensed at the attempt by the two state legislators in Connecticut to tell the Catholic church how to run its financial affairs. But unlike the thousands who shared his view and took the day off to protest in Hartford, Harold “Hal” Turner took his protest down a different path. He urged readers of his blog to “take up arms” against the two lawmakers, who he said had an obligation to “obey the Constitution or die.”  Promising to furnish the home addresses of the legislators, Hal Turner advised Catholics to “put down this tyranny by force.”

Take up arms. Obey or die. Put down by force. Is there really any about what Mr Turner was telling his readers to do? Once he found himself having to address that question in front of authorities, he equivocated, saying that he hoped no one would “go off the deep end and do something terrible,” but he added with chilling candor, “You never can tell.”

Our words are, in a sense, our offspring. They get out into the world and affect others in ways “you never can tell.” Just as we do for real children, we place first on our Constitutional list of priorities durable protections for words so their potential and contributions are recognized and respected. But we also want our laws to prevent their exploitation and abuse so lives are not ruined or lost.

Fortunately, our democratic system still draws on the reservoirs rationality tapped more than two centuries ago by its founders, so we can make the important distinctions between free speech and incitement. Strangely, we are reassured by our government’s disparate responses to the powerful and spontaneous outcry over a bit of crummy legislation: the Diocese of Bridgeport gets to administer its parishes without government interference; and Hal Turner is facing possible jail time.