There is no distinction between hate speech and free speech. If free speech does not protect hate speech, there is no free speech. One man’s hate speech is another man’s Torah. The Torah commands the Jews to commit genocide against Amalek. Is that not hate speech? Much of Torah could be condemned as hate speech.
Opposing the celebration of homosexuality was long a normal form of speech in the West. Even liberals 30 years ago did not want their kids to grow up to be gay.
News: INDIO (CBSLA.com) — Students displaying anti-LGBT stickers at a high school in Indio have touched off a debate: is that free speech or hate speech?
The stickers show a rainbow — the symbol of the gay community — with a line crossing through it. Officials said the stickers have increasingly shown up over the past two weeks on some students’ school ID badges at Shadow Hills High School, as well as on social media websites.
The increasing number of the stickers caused an outcry at the school among students and faculty. Many called it hate speech. Shadow Hills senior and vice president of the Gay Straight Alliance Michelle Bachman said on Twitter that the stickers were “definitely hate speech, but legally, we can’t do anything until these students start to physically harass us, which I believe is an injustice.”
School district administrators said the students have the right to display the stickers, just as pro-LGBT students would.
In an email sent to staff Wednesday, Desert Sands Unified School District administrators wrote, “After consulting with district level personnel and our legal counsel, it was determined that these students do have the protected right to freedom of speech, just as students portraying rainbows in support of the LGBT would.”
