> Just because we legally can do something doesn't mean it's good to exercise that power.
What does "good" and "bad" have to do with this? We have laws specifically so we are not at the mercy of moral judgement. We tried that already, it didn't work. If it's legal you either accept it or try change the law. Anything else is mob justice.
I think that this is a dangerous attitude that leads to more laws and the clawing away of rights.
The supreme court explicitly held that people have the constitutional right to hold an anti-gay rally outside of military members' funerals [1]. I think that the vast majority of people (including the overwhelming majority of people holding anti-gay views) would find this behavior atrocious and immoral. But it's protected free speech.
The problem though is that enough of this kind of stuff happens and laws begin to change. Sure, it's one crazy group in this case, but if this sort of behavior were prevalent enough, peoples' views on free speech would change. Sure, this is an extreme example, since something specifically mentioned in the constitution is very hard to change. But there are plenty of examples of laws that only exist in response to some idiot(s) who decided to ruin it for everyone else (as a very simple example, I no longer have the right to buy more than one pack of Sudafed at a time where I live... they didn't just dream that law up out of thin air).
This would be a much more compelling argument if I believed that homophobic politicians, judges, and groups will defend the speech rights of gay people. Instead what I see is a pattern of right wing groups leveraging the courts to protect their own right to hate while also leveraging the courts to oppress groups they hate. Standing up for the Nazi's right to march in my town won't cause those Nazis to stand up for my right to march in my town.
When’s the last time the courts protected the right to hate in the form of preventing speech of gay people? This is just worrying about things that don’t happen. Right now socially LGBT people have a moral high ground and very little of their speech is ever prevented.
How does it infringe on their right to speak though? They’re speaking very loudly about the issue in fact. I hear them more than I ever have in the past. For being less than 1% of the population I think they’re one of the most overrepresented speech groups, from what I’ve seen anyway.
And this is precisely why I do not expect any defense from the right. When discussion of gay people in classrooms and in books is verboten and when tame drag shows draw crowds brandishing weapons and laws banning them entirely, I don't see people on the right leaping to defense.
They are speaking loudly about the issue, because their speech is being infringed. The law in Florida currently says that you're not allowed to talk to school children about sexuality in an inappropriate way, without specifying what this exactly means. I have not seen any conservatives deny that this is specifically set up to still allow talk about heterosexuality (e.g. a male teacher talking about how he went hiking with his wife) while disallowing any mention of homosexuality (e.g. a male teacher talking about how he went hiking with his husband).
The only defense I can see would be the same which was used to deny gay marriage - "we're not infringing on their rights, they can still marry straight people of the opposite sex!" - which I'm sure we can all agree is not in any way a good defense.
You can legally share every last detail of the poop you just left in the toilet, pictures and all. If you choose to do that at the lunch table at work, nobody is obliged to remain seated with you. Ergo, sharing such details is not a good idea. Even though it is perfectly legal.
Those co-workers who vacated the table are exercising their rights in walking away. Call that "mob justice" if you will.
There's a difference between walking away & taping someone's mouth at the table. Walking away is freedom of association. Taping someone's mouth is censorship & a forced imposition or outright violence against a person.
Parent is trying to draw a parallel between mouth taping and censorship. The problem is that lunchroom scenarios aren't cleanly isomorphic to online scenarios.
Okay. Let's say you like to share details of your bathroom escapades on a forum dedicated to 3d printing. The admins give you a few warnings and eventually kick you off, because nobody wants to hear that. I daresay that isn't "violence." It's still an exercise of free association where the forum moderators have decided your speech is "not good" despite being perfectly legal.
Sure, call it censorship. I maintain that it's legally permissible to ban shit-posters for misconduct. I'd further argue that failing to ban shit-posters will dissuade 3d printing enthusiasts from using a particular forum, granting the shit-posters a heckler's veto which is its own form of censorship.
It's legal for an adult to drink a handle of vodka every night. Doesn't mean it's a good idea. It's legal for you to tell your neighbor you hate them. Doesn't mean it's a good idea.
This is disingenuous. Drinking vodka is not a constitutional right, it is just something that is not forbidden by law, so you are comparing 2 very different things. For any constitutional right people should be proud to show support and exercise it as much as possible, otherwise it is not a right, just a permission like drinking.
What does "good" and "bad" have to do with this? We have laws specifically so we are not at the mercy of moral judgement. We tried that already, it didn't work. If it's legal you either accept it or try change the law. Anything else is mob justice.