Free speech is just that – “free”
Constitution, Free Speech Saturday, July 2nd, 2011
By Gene Policinski, TheHill.com
When the U.S. Supreme Court ruled June 27 that states cannot forbid the sale or rental of video games to children, it punctuated two terms remarkable for the court’s support for free expression – in cases remarkable for speech that many, if not most, of us really, really dislike.
In Brown v. Entertainment Merchants Association, the court’s 7-2 decision voided a never-enforced California law that banned the sale or rental to children age 17 and younger of video games involving violence, gore and assault.
The increasing interactive reality and violent nature of the games prompted the law, which state officials supported by citing a bevy of studies showing possible links to real-world violence. But in his majority opinion, Justice Antonin Scalia dismissed the studies as inconclusive, writing that the legitimate government role in protecting children “does not include a free-floating power to restrict the ideas to which children may be exposed.”
In earlier cases, the justices upheld free-speech arguments when they:
-Struck down campaign finance laws that prevented corporations from direct spending in support of a candidate, leaving intact, for now, a ban on direct contributions, in Citizens United v. FEC;
-Held that a federal law aimed at banning so-called “crush videos” involving animal cruelty, was too broadly written, and could be applied to legal activities such as videos showing bow hunting, in United States v. Stevens;
-Supported the right of Americans to express their opinions even in the most repugnant fashion, in a case involving a Topeka, Kan., based group organized as Westboro Baptist Church that protests outside military funerals, in Snyder v. Phelps.
To read more, visit: http://thehill.com/blogs/congress-blog/judicial/169387-free-speech-is-just-that-free
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