Re: Open Forum?
BadCzech wrote: What is the best way for to express one’s voice on hot topics? Recently, a discussion took place about a pharmacist who wouldn't dispense contraceptives because of his religious beliefs. The pharmacist was a devout Catholic. His attorney argued before the licensing board that “no state law or policy addresses pharmacist's conscientious objections to dispensing medicine and any punishment would violate (the pharmacist’s) first amendment rights” (AP, 2004). Should we immediately trample upon the pharmacist religious views? Would we want our precious personal paradigm trashed publicly? Is it appropriate to condemn the religious or moral views of others in a country founded on religious and moral freedom? I’ll let you decided. What we can do is stick to the facts of any matter. We can ask, did the pharmacist have a duty to the patron? Did the pharmacist forward the prescription? We could argue and debate whether forwarding the prescription is a violation of ones conscious without condemning the conscientious objector.
The America Constitution grants each and every one of us the right to free speech. However, we are not compelled to exercise our right, especially at the expense of others. We need to keep in mind that when someone else openly and honestly expresses their religious or political views they lay themselves bear to public scrutiny and attack. Open and honest communication is not an occasion to attack the values of another individual. We certainly would not want someone else to come along and deconstruct and stomp all over our precious paradigm after we laid our selves open for the kill. There is no freedom where people live in fear, and there can be no freedom of speech where there is fear in the forum.
Your first paragraphs condemned violence aimed at others in retaliation for their political views. We all condemn violence. It's against the law. Although some person might be a racist -- and may constitutionally espouse his racist views no matter how offensive his views may be -- he may NOT place a cross on someone's lawn and set it afire. When people resort to violence or terror or true threats, they are violating criminal laws and hopefully they will be held accountable to the law.
People have the right to disagree. The right to voice dissent is one of the greatest, most liberating rights we have in this country.
See Watts v. United States, 394 U.S. 705 (1969). Whenever speech (in whatever form it takes) is penalized, the language of the statute must be interpreted "against the background of a profound national commitment to the principle that debate on public issues should be uninhibited, robust, and wide-open, and that it may well include vehement, caustic, and sometimes unpleasantly sharp attacks on government and public officials."
New York Times Co. v. Sullivan, 376 U.S. 254, 270 (1964).
With respect to the pharmacist, he is entitled to his religious views. The law does not penalize him for his deeply-held religious views. He was not required by law to dispense birth control. The American Pharmacists Association recognizes a pharmacist's right to refuse to dispense medications because of moral beliefs. However, when the pharmacist refused to fill the prescription for birth control, he also refused to give the patient back her prescription. The patient went to another pharmacy. When the pharmacist at the next pharmacy called the first pharmacist to get the prescription, he refused to give it up.
http://www.firstamendmentcenter.org/news.aspx?id=14189
The pharmacist was brought before the licensing board -- NOT for his refusal to fill the prescription due to his religious beliefs -- but for his refusal to transfer the prescription to another pharmacy / pharmacist or to inform the patient of other ways she could get her medication when he refused to fill the prescription and refused to release the prescription to another pharmacy / pharmacist.
The prescription didn't belong to the pharmacist who refused to fill it and who refused to give it up to another pharmacist who would fill it -- the prescription belonged to the patient.
Freedom of speech / freedom of religion is a two way street. No one was forcing the pharmacist to fill the prescription. But, his religious beliefs did not give him the right to prevent the young woman from taking her prescription and going to another pharmacy. A person's right to hold religious beliefs or moral convictions does not give that person the right to impose those religious beliefs or moral convictions on others. The pharmacist was not simply a "conscientious objector," he was taking action that prevented the woman from excercising her constitutionally-protected right to privacy to determine her own procreative destiny.
The pharmacist is not facing discipline because of his religious beliefs, he is facing discipline because of his CONDUCT.
If a person practiced his religion by throwing virgins into a volcano where they meet an untimely and violent death and that person is arrested for murder -- could he defend the murder charge by claiming he was excercising his freedom of religion protected by the First Amendment? The answer is NO.
You need to put the exercise of constitutionally-protected rights into proper perspective.
Most people do not condemn freedom of speech -- most people do not condemn the freedom of religion -- most people condemn those who attempt to impose their views upon others through violence, through holier-than-thou attitudes, through unlawful conduct, or through the ill-fated enactment of laws that deprive others of equal protection under the law.
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