The hypocrisy of is even more pronounced in countries such as Canada, where there is no First Amendment to stand in the way of the secular left. As reported in a recent column by John Leo, the Canadian legislature is on the brink of passing Bill C-250, which would add sexual orientation to the “Canadian hate propaganda law, thus making public criticism of homosexuality a crime.”
Leo reports that the “bill contains a loophole for religious opposition to homosexuality,” but that law professor David Bernstein believes the loophole will close, making it “illegal in Canada to advocate traditional Christian opposition to homosexual sex.” Bernstein’s prediction is not over-the-top. Recently, the supreme court of British Columbia upheld the suspension without pay of a high school teacher for writing a letter to his local newspaper expressing the conviction that homosexuality was not a fixed condition, but one that could be treated. Religious groups in Canada make the case that C-250 would make it illegal to teach certain passages of the Bible in Scripture classes.
It is not just Canada where these trends are in motion. Leo reports the Swedish chancellor of justice has said that any reference to the Bible stating that homosexuality is sinful might be considered a crime in that country. A Pentecostal minister is facing charges in Sweden for doing just that. In Britain, the police are investigating Bishop Peter Forster of Chester after he told a local newspaper that some homosexuals “can reorientate themselves.” In Ireland last August, reports Leo, “the Irish Council for Civil Liberties warned that clergy who circulated a Vatican statement opposing gay marriage could face prosecution under incitement-to-hatred legislation.”
Leo concludes, “First Amendment arguments are losing ground to anti-discrimination laws in many areas, and once stalwart free speech groups, like the ACLU, have mostly gone over to the other side. In the interest of fighting bias, liberal groups are willing to silence one side of the debate over homosexuality and several other hot-button social issues.” He adds, “The best defenders of the First Amendment are now on the right.”
It gets clearer with each passing day: The left’s crusade for freedom of expression was a con game. The left championed freed of speech when they were out of power. It was a tactic they employed to undermine the old consensus in favor of the values of the Christian West. Their goal was to disarm the guardians of the old consensus, college administrators and government officials vulnerable to the charge that they were close-minded and fearful of new ideas. Few college presidents or faculty chairmen wanted to be seen by their peers or the student body as a version of the Hollywood stereotype of the stuffy professor or cranky cleric.
You can see why. In the 1960s and 1970s, college presidents who faced down the protests of community groups or alumni angry about Marxist professors or the school’s hosting of radical speakers were cast by the media as courageous individuals, who took a stand for the hallowed principles of freedom of expression and the open marketplace of ideas; while those who refused to permit their campus to serve as a venue for speakers hostile to traditional values were portrayed as peevish and ignorant obstacles to society’s intellectual progress, modern versions of the men who condemned Galileo and Copernicus.
All this changed when the left took control of our academic institutions. Once the old counter-culture radicals became faculty members and administrators, freedom of expression gave way to political correctness. The principle of freedom of expression turned out to be nothing more than a tool to advance their agenda; once they were in power, it threatened that agenda. In other words, it was necessary for the left to sell the idea that no limits should be placed on freedom of speech when the goal was to introduce students in the 1960s and 1970s to the ideas of radical Marxists and black nationalists. It is necessary for them nowadays to establish codes of political correctness for the same reason: to ensure that modern students will not be exposed to ideas that challenge “progressive” thinking about homosexuality and feminism.
But the goal has always been the same: the agenda. When freedom of expression furthered the agenda, the left favored freedom of expression. Now that authoritatively-enforced codes of political correctness further it, the left favors political correctness. The right of Allen Ginsburg and Eldridge Cleaver to speak on campus was defended for the same reason that Oliver North is denied a platform today. Freedom of expression never mattered, except as a means to an end.
Remember the old line (probably mistakenly) attributed to Voltaire: “I may disagree with what you have to say, but will defend to the death your right to say it.” The left used to trot it out all the time when politicians or community groups were in up in arms over radical activities on campus. Do you ever wonder if the members of the faculty committees constructing codes of political correctness, or the Canadian politicians writing laws making it illegal to teach what is in the Bible about homosexuality, are ever troubled by the memory of the days when they would recite Voltaire’s words as if they were a sacred text?
Are they aware that they are behaving in the authoritarian manner that they once denounced? That they are acting like the pigs in George Orwell’s Animal Farm, busily constructing rules for a society in which all ideas are equal, but some are more equal than others? John Leo reports that in Canada some refer to Bill C-250 as the “Bible as Hate Literature” bill. It has come to that.
James Fitzpatrick's new novel, The Dead Sea Conspiracy: Teilhard de Chardin and the New American Church, is available from our online store. You can email Mr. Fitzpatrick at fitzpatrijames@sbcglobal.net.
(This article originally appeared in The Wanderer and is reprinted with permission. To subscribe call 651-224-5733.)
