In response to a Sept. 11 story (“Portland City Council grapples with harassment, hate speech from anonymous Zoom callers”), there is no “hate speech” exception to the First Amendment. In June 2017, the U.S. Supreme Court unanimously ruled that “speech that demeans on the basis of race, ethnicity, gender, religion, age, disability or any other similar ground is hateful, but the proudest boast of our free speech jurisprudence is that we protect the freedom to express ‘the thought that we hate.’ ”
This is not to say that anyone can say what’s on his or her mind any time or anywhere. A person may not use a means of furthering his or her interests if it will incite violence, cause injury to others or interfere with the rights of others. If such harm occurs, the malefactor will not be protected by the First Amendment.
There is a fine line between free speech and an incitement to violence. Outside the Minnesota State Fair in 2015, protesters chanted: “Pigs in a blanket, fry ’em like bacon.” Although the St. Paul Police Federation president called the chanting “outrageous and disgusting,” it amounted to protected speech.
When Benjamin Franklin, one of the delegates to the Constitutional Convention, was asked by a group of citizens what kind of government they had created, he answered: “A Republic, if you can keep it.” If free speech is ever suppressed, we will not be able to keep it.
Walter J. Eno
Scarborough
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