Confronting "Hate Speech" with Free Speech
Jonathan Rauch, Brookings Institute senior fellow and author of The Constitution of Knowledge, is a liberal who’s concerned about free speech. In this excerpt from our recent conversation, he discusses the history of canceling of gay people in America and argues that fighting harmful ideas with evidence and winning arguments is the way to bring about change.
This post is free and available to the public. To receive early access to TGS episodes, an ad-free podcast feed, Q&As, and other exclusive content and benefits, click below.
The only hate is coming from the left in the form of censoring views on campus, defunding the police, looting, rioting, voter fraud, forcing religious groups to provide abortion and recognize gay marriage, refusal to crack down on immigration, threatening justices of the court. A real libertarian supports religious freedom. You are a demented, bigot leftist. I lost relatives in the holocaust. Do not talk to me about religious bigotry. Gays are some of the most intolerant people I know. I am also a gay man but they do not speak for me
I have to say that it seems that Glenn, usually reliant on data and evidence (n > 30 samples) is very reliant on anecdotes about his son here. I'm a Catholic. What our catechism is accused of saying here, it says. I stand by it and by the Church. That doesn't mean that I'm going to accost anyone, or that anyone is going to kill themselves now that the CCC says what it says, or that Catholics believing what we believe is really even wrong. It can be thought wrong here in a secular context, but that's not the end of the argument. I like the pluralistic argument put forth by Mr. Rausch, and I think many, many of us religious traditionalists were ready to make this accommodation in the culture with our LGBT fellow citizens until Big Business and Government got involved and started to make LGBT matters a moral litmus test for the people of this country. We have to dissent and disagree vehemently with each other, and that has to be OK, or this whole thing, this whole enterprise is over. Glenn Loury should take a moment and understand Christian and Catholic anthropology before simply falling back on anecdote and emotion.