The right to remain hateful

Not long ago, I thought it might be fun to write about spending some time moderating comments and complaints on our web site, charlotteobserver.com.

A few hours, maybe, or even a day – enough to offer a glimpse at how technology has made ugliness so very easy and accessible.

Then I decided I might also spend a day at Starbucks to reveal that some of us have caffeine issues. In other words: Duh. We know we’re ugly, and we know, too, that the problem is larger than technology. Keyboards and without keyboards, more of us seem emboldened to say out loud whatever noxious or hurtful notion crosses our minds.

This past week, the U.S. Supreme Court reminded us how frustrating, challenging and, ultimately, valuable that can be.

The Court ruled that Kansas preacher Fred Phelps and his hateful Westboro Baptist Church followers were constitutionally protected from punishment when they picketed outside the 2006 funeral of Matthew Snyder, a 20-year-old Marine killed in Iraq.

The protected speech that day included a sign that read “Thank God for Dead Soldiers.” Another said: “God Hates Fags,” although Snyder wasn’t gay.

It is vile speech. Cruel speech. You can choose your own damning adjective. And what makes the ruling more difficult is that the Court is demanding that we take this speech seriously. Why?

Because it’s a part, however crude, of “matters of public import,” as Chief Justice John Roberts wrote.

(It might make you smile, however, that Westboro owes some thanks to none other than Hustler Magazine, whose cases the Ccourt cited as precedent in the protections offered to outrageous speech. Strange bedfellows, indeed.)

It’s elementary, really, when you step back and strip away emotion. But that’s a difficult thing to do with hate speech, because words that intend to hurt usually do.

Even the court, with its 8-1 verdict, had some struggles with this. In a passionate dissent, Justice Samuel Alito wrote that the Westboro picketers inflicted severe pain, intentionally. At what point, Alito asks, does public debate become a form of assault?

It is a struggle we face with our own public debates, from anonymous commenters to one very public elected official.

Back in January, county commissioner Bill James called homosexuals “sexual predators” in an e-mail to his colleagues and in subsequent communications on his web site. His fellow commissioners responded with a resolution pledging support for tolerance – a weak gesture, I wrote then, when they could have confronted James about the dangers that come with wrongly demonizing a whole population.

Now James is predictably back at it – again calling homosexuals “sexual predators” in recent e-mails dealing with men having sex in areas of a Mecklenburg park. While it’s a given that public sex should be prosecuted, James had no evidence that anyone in the park was preying on children. Their behavior was enough, he said.

Just to be clear, he said: “Homosexuals are sexual predators at their core.”

There’s no need, again, to cite all the research that overwhelmingly debunks that premise. And we can take solace that time is pushing James further to the fringe of the conversation on gays and lesbians. Yes, many among us continue to struggle with homosexuality, its morality, its place among the institutions we grew up honoring – but fewer believe that gays are evil at their core.

That’s what the Supreme Court reminded us this past week – that speech evolves, that debate evolves, and that evolution comes not from eliminating the most offensive parts of the conversation, but by confronting them and using them to help frame what we think.

It’s not easy to do. Not when the words are painful, or ugly, and not when they can bring harm – or invite it. And so we struggle each day with what gets condemned and what gets allowed. And we know, deep down, that while it might be more satisfying to reach for our “delete” buttons, it’s more valuable to at least consider “reply.”