Piss Christ , anyone?
It wouldn't surprise me to
learn that our YouTube generation
knows little about the outrage sparked by Andre Serrano's 1987 photographic depiction
of Jesus Christ on the crucifix submerged in a bottle of Serrano's own urine. It provoked a furious response among "devout"
Christians who showed little tolerance for the free speech canard used to
justify the vulgar depictions of the Prophet Muhammad currently in the news.
Nope, back then it seemed,
nobody, particularly conservatives both religious and otherwise, was having it. When it came to Piss Christ, they didn't have the "constitution" to stomach any of
that First Amendment sh*t.
Today, like then, most of what
I get out of the conservative media is breathtakingly infernal, but little of
the malevolent crap it spins out on a daily basis infuriates me more than its seething
contempt over what it considers the contempt among Muslims for those who slander
their Prophet Muhammad under the cover of "free speech."
It seems that slandering the
Prophet Muhammad has become somewhat of an intermittent ritual for much of the
Western world over the past few years. The Innocence of the Muslims is of
course, the latest free speech test case, but was joined just days ago by yet
another dispatch of anti-Prophet Muhammad "cartoons" emanating from a French
"satirical" rag which shall remain unnamed.
So today it seems that free
speech may be the only part of the Constitution that conservatives and the ACLU
agree upon -- at least until the next Piss
Christ comes along. So who or what
is next in line to wield "free speech" like a flaming wrecking ball in a linen
closet? What prevents the imbeciles who needlessly
provoke Muslim outrage from understanding that even free speech -- just like the
right to bear arms, for example -- is subject to the same kinds of common sense
restraints imposed on most freedoms in a non-existential society? But beyond that, what is gained through the
exercise of free speech for the purpose of religious provocation; of goading
adherents into the position of defending their faith, just because free speech
grants one the right to do so?
I'm all for free speech. But it's about context. To those among us who, in this particular context,
would soapbox the free speech issue, I have one serious question: Would you stand as firmly in the defense of my
freedom of speech to call you an a**hole?
Knowing human nature, my guess is
probably not. So really, when used
simply as justification to goad and inflame, is the concept of free speech actually
enhanced or diminished?
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