Dr. Ken and the Catholic Class
Dr. Kenneth Howell was an adjunct professor at the University of Illinois. One of the classes that he taught was Introduction to Catholicism. In that class, he discussed the Catholic Church's teachings on moral issues, specifically on homosexuality. In his words:
Every semester in that “Introduction” class, I gave two lectures dealing with Catholic Moral positions. One was an explanation of Natural Moral Law as affirmed by the Church. The second was designed as an application of Natural Law Theory to a disputed issue in our society. Most of those semesters, my chosen topic was the moral status of homosexual acts. I would happy to explain more fully the Catholic Church’s position on this matter but, for the sake of brevity, I can summarize it as follows. A homosexual orientation is not morally wrong just as no moral guilt can be assigned to any inclination that a person has. However, based on natural moral law, the Church believes that homosexual acts are contrary to human nature and therefore morally wrong. This is what I taught in my class.
To try to help his students understand the difference between utilitarianism and natural law, he sent them an email. This caused problems. Again in his own words:
To help students understand better how this issue might be decided within competing moral systems, I sent them an email contrasting utilitarianism (in the populist sense) and natural moral law. If we take utilitarianism to be a kind of cost-benefit analysis, I tried to show them that under utilitarianism, homosexual acts would not be considered immoral whereas under natural moral law they would. This is because natural moral law, unlike utilitarianism, judges morality on the basis of the acts themselves.
After the email was forwarded to the University's Office of Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, and Transgendered Concerns, his Department head told him that he would no longer be allowed to teach at the University. In response to the backlash, the President of the University has stated that the matter is under review. In his words:
I think it important to reserve judgment until all facts are in and the review is complete and I hope you agree. I also believe it is important to correct misinformation being reported by many media outlets and Internet web sites. Prof. Howell has not been dismissed from the University, as misreported on the Internet and by several media outlets. He continues to hold his appointment as an adjunct professor. No decision has been made regarding the appointment of an instructor for the course Prof. Howell previously taught in the Fall semester; and no decision will be made until the review is complete.
Thus, he was told that he could not teach any more, but has not been dismissed and no decision has been made about who will teach his class in the fall. It may be that the University will back down and give him his position back or perhaps he will just remain in a state of limbo where the review remains under review indefinitely. However, it seems pretty clear that the controversy arose because someone didn't like the fact that he discussed Catholic moral teachings in an Introduction to Catholicism class.
You can read more about it on the Save Dr. Ken Facebook page.
The Protesting Preacher and Intentional Infliction of Emotional Distress
I have to admit that I am much less sympathetic about this next case. Fred Phelps is the Pastor of Wesboro Baptist Church, a church consisting mostly of his family members. Rev. Phelps believes that God is punishing America for tolerating homosexuality. To express that view, his church protests at military funerals. In the case of Lance Cpl. Matthew Snyder, the Phelpsians:
carried signs which expressed general messages such as "God Hates the USA," "America is doomed," "Pope in hell," and "Fag troops." The signs also carried more specific messages, to wit: "You’re going to hell," "God hates you," "Semper fi fags," and "Thank God for dead soldiers."
Snyder v. Phelps, No. 08-1026, (4th Cir. 9/24/09), slip op., p. 5. The protest was held in compliance with local ordinances and was not seen by the parents until they saw news coverage of it.
They then ran an "epic" on their website www.godhatesfags.com in which they claimed that Lance Cpl. Snyder's parents "'taught Matthew to defy his creator,''raised him for the devil,' and 'taught him that God was a liar.'" The Phelpsians had never met Lance Cpl. Snyder or his parents.
The Snyders sued. The jury returned a damage award of $10.1 million (which the judge reduced to $5 million). In its charge to the jury, the court told the jurors that:
Speech that is vulgar, offensive, and shocking . . . is not entitled to absolute constitutional protection under all circumstances.
The Court of Appeals reversed, finding that the First Amendment does not allow persons to be sued for speech, even if it is "vulgar, offensive and shocking."
The case is now pending before the Supreme Court.
It is hard not to sympathize with parents who fought back after some strange people claimed that we should "Thank God for Dead Soldiers" and claimed that they raised their son to defy God. The problem here is that once you allow people to sue for speech that is "vulgar, offensive and shocking," where do you stop? A law professor whose blog I follow has filed a friend of the court brief in which he suggests that allowing suits based on speech which is "vulgar, offensive and shocking" would encourage college speech codes. You can read the brief here. This leads right back to Dr. Ken's non-firing. If the First Amendment allows free speech unless the speech is vulgar, offensive or shocking, then any controversial speech can be censored and punished, since if it's controversial, someone will find it vulgar, offensive or shocking. At that point, free speech is gone.
What does it all mean? If you believe in the First Amendment, you have to go for it all the way. That means allowing Muslims to build mosques in Manhattan and allowing crazy preachers to picket funerals. We may not like it, but if we protect freedom at the margins, we protect it at the core as well.
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