Free Speech – Page 8 – Family Council

U.S. Senator Introduces Bill to Spy Out “Hate Speech”

May 2, 2014JerryCurrent EventsCurrent Events, Free Speech

The American Family Association has issued a statement about a piece of legislation rolled out last month by Democratic Senator Edward Markey.

From AFA:

May 1, 2014

Senator Edward J. Markey (D-Mass.) has introduced legislation for the federal government to monitor and analyze speech on the Internet, television, and radio looking for anything it considers “hate speech.”

The Hate Crime Reporting Act of 2014 (S.2219) would capture Internet and other telecommunications that the government interprets as encouraging hate crimes based on gender, race, religion, ethnicity, or sexual orientation.

This is a bad bill, even to the liberal Boston Herald editorial staff. It mandates that the government monitor and analyze speech and press statements that are protected by the First Amendment. The wording is deliberately fuzzy, so that although it sounds like it only addresses constitutionally unprotected speech, it reaches much further.

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Obama Administration Poised to Silence Political Opponents

Jan 24, 2014JerryCurrent EventsFree Speech, Liberty

The IRS is proposing new regulations giving themselves more authority to restrict nonprofit groups.

For the first time, the IRS wants to define “candidate-related political activity” to include projects such as voter guides, legislative scorecards or reporting voting records of elected officials, get-out-the-vote campaigns, promotion of voter registration, or even mentioning the names of candidates who are running for office. Any “candidate-related political activity” could jeopardize a group’s nonprofit status.

These new proposed rules are significant, because they affect organizations’ ability to engage in issue advocacy and basic political speech.

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Elementary School Censors ‘God’ in 1st Grader’s Veteran’s Day Poem

Dec 4, 2012JerryReligious FreedomFile Cabinet, Free Speech, Religious Freedom

From Alliance Defending Freedom — “An elementary school has removed a sentence referring to “God” from a 1st-grader’s poem commemorating her grandfathers’ military service. The school forced the student to remove the sentence prior to presenting the poem at a Veteran’s Day ceremony last month.

“The censored sentence, referring to one of her grandfathers who served during the Vietnam War, read, ‘He prayed to God for peace, he prayed to God for strength.’Alliance Defending Freedom sent a letter Friday on behalf of McDowell County residents who are concerned that similar acts of unconstitutional censorship could occur again.”