Ledan said:
rcs619 said:
Ledan said:
If you stand on a soapbox and say "We should kill all Arabs, cause they're the cause of AIDS", someone should stop you. It's first of all a lie, and you are inciting people to do violence.
That IS inciting people to violence, and you CAN potentially be arrested for that in America.
Honestly, the main problem in this thread is that half the people posting do not actually know how American free-speech laws work.
You can say "I hate black people. They're lazy and they're stealing all the white athletes' jobs" all you want. But if you go around saying "Hey! We should go kill Kobe Byrant" you have just attempted to incite violence and have committed a crime.
It's like all the people who freaked out about Obama. They can call him a nazi, socialist, communist secret-muslim all they want. But if someone actually says "Let's go kill that guy!" or "Someone should kill him!" then yes, that's illegal.
There IS a legal difference between racist and stupid comments... and direct threats or attempts to cause people harm through the use of your speech. You can say what you want, until your words begin to put other people in danger.
Don't know much about American law, thanks for the clear up.
Still, if hate speech is "Obama is Stalin in disguise", I still think it would be wrong for a politician to say something like "Black people are inferior to white people. Also, homosexuals are the cause of cancer". And hate speech is still verbal abuse, which is usually illegal.
We recently had Rick Santorum, a presidential candidate, say that AIDS came from "One homosexual airline steward having sex with a monkey and then bringing it back to the US". Right now, a bunch of senators and congressmen are ranting on about how "Obama is trying to destroy our religious liberty" because he wanted to require that all hospitals have free birth control available, even hospitals affiliated with religious groups.
A politician saying that homosexuals are the cause of cancer would be pretty mild these days.
As for verbal abuse... it depends. If you walk up to someone and go "You dirty sand-n****r. Your people attacked us and I hope a predator drone killed your uncle over there" then, yes, that IS verbal abuse and is very much illegal.
A group of protesters standing in an area they obtained a permit to protest in yelling on about how their interpretation of God hates gay people, and how we should be thankful for soldiers getting killed because it is punishment for supporting homosexuality, is legal. It is stupid, morally reprehensible and hateful... but they aren't actually harassing an individual. If they did that in the middle of the night, or without the proper permits, then yes, they could be removed.
The Westburough Baptists know that though. They aren't stupid, and they fully understand the laws relating to what they are doing. That is why they are so brazen. They know exactly how far they can push the letter of the law without stepping into illegal territory. They're playing the system to get media attention. Honestly, stuff like this is exactly what they want... a bunch of people wasting their time discussing something they did.
SO it seems maybe the US should do what Canada does. Hit them with disturbing the peace, trespassing,
They have to get a permit to be there. The WBC isn't there unannounced. They had to do the paperwork to get permission to be at that spot, at that time, to protest. That is why they don't get charged with disturbing the peace, because they are there at their allotted time. They don't get charged with trespassing because they are at a spot, on public property, that the city approved.
It isn't like they are in the funeral. Most states have gotten wise to their antics, and changed their laws so that the WBC is required to be a certain distance away. The members of the funeral usually never actually see them these days. They stick the WBC off down the road a ways, and bring everyone in another way so they don't even have to deal with them.
The only people who see the WBC are the media, and people who go up to them to counter-protest.