Some of these “incidents” were genuinely funny, e.g., the woman who said “I’m an [effing] passenger” at a traffic stop; but I think that we should also be genuinely concerned about the number of citations issued.

If I was going to hold any idea as “sacred” (and I don’t, really), it would be free speech. This is the most foundational right/liberty that we have as citizens in America (it’s the first amendment), and it has generally been held in high regard since the nation recovered from John Adams’ attempt to trash it.

Ideally, speech should be free–even if people are talking about violence–until those people start to actually harm others (as with libel or slander) or act on their ideas instead of just talking about them. This has not entirely been the case in America–at least since the Supreme Court came up with the idea of “fighting words” in 1942. Whether or not “fighting words” are a valid limitation on free speech, it is fairly clear that the majority of the citations mentioned in the article above are valid expressions under current (and Constitutional) law.

Americans seem to have a hard time separating “things we don’t like” from “things that should be illegal.” Hell, probably everyone has this problem. But one of the great things about America is that we are not a direct democracy where the will of the majority dictates legality; instead, the Constitution exists to protect the will of the minority from the will of the majority, ensure equality, and, in this case, protect free speech even if it is disliked by the majority of Americans.

As Witold Walczak of the ACLU said, “Nobody likes to get sworn at, but you can’t make it a crime.” You can’t make speech you don’t like illegal. That’s what it’s all about. I want to protect the free speech of assholes like John Hagee just as much as I want to protect the free speech of Christopher Hitchens or the random guy who flips me off on the street. It’s not because I like what they’re saying; it’s because I love our basic liberties.

As skeptics in Pittsburgh, this issue is especially relevant to us. Atheists are the most hated group in America, and therefore the most likely target for popular motions to limit certain protected speech. It’s obviously already happening. We need to support the ACLU and other organizations when these cases come to trial, no matter how much we agree or disagree with the use of free speech that led to it.