From: mjones@fenway.aix.kingston.ibm.com (Mike Jones)
Subject: Re: 1st amendment exceptions, was: U.S. Bill of Rights today
Date: Thu, 10 Sep 92 22:15:32 GMT
Reply-To: mjones@donald.aix.kingston.ibm.com
Organization: IBM Corp. Kingston NY

In article <BuBsCp.7vp@rice.edu> ervan@rice.edu (Ervan Darnell) writes:
>jkp@cs.HUT.FI (Jyrki Kuoppala) wrote:
>---------------------------------------
>	Really?
>		AMENDMENT I:
>	[text of amendment deleted]
>
>		REALITY I:
>	[examples deleted]
>	Free Speech: Censorship of adult materials.
>
>---------------------------------------
>
>Point 6 is definitely a problem.  It's much worse than that though.
>The largest part of the FCC's job is censorship.  It ranges from the
>seven dirty words list (now expanded to more nebulous rules) to the
>fairness doctrine (which while sounding inocuous puts the 
>government in the business of deciding who is legitmate and 
>deserving of air time) to the whole concept of licensing based
>on 'in the public interest'.    Public financing of campaigns
>and restrictions on campaign contributions are also troublesome
>for limiting how much 'speech' someone can buy.

A couple of clarifications. The FCC spends much less time/resource/$$ on
monitoring now than it did 10 years ago. It responds to complaints only. The
worst part about the way it works now is that the rules have become so
nebulous that it's often hard for a broadcaster to know whether he's in
violation. The fairness doctrine was repealed several years ago (around
1983, if memory serves).  I'm not sure how the concept of licensing in the
public interest connects to censorship; the whole idea is that the
Commission solicits input from the community as to whether the broadcaster
is in fact serving the public interest and bases licensing decisions on that
input. That mode of operations is pretty much extinct, anyway; post-Reagan,
the phrase is 'in the financial interest (of the licenseholder)'.

>As for the religous freedom cases, I cannot agree that these decisions
>violate the First Amendment either.  I do think the laws involved should
>be repealed, but that is a different matter.  What then does freedom of
>religion mean?  Does it mean that if I call something a religous practice
>it should therefore be legal?  Does it mean that people in a particular
>church can do something that I cannot?  I think not.  It means that those
>things which are religous and not otherwise illegal cannot be targetted
>by a law, i.e. capricious laws particularly affecting religion are
>unconstitutional.

This is a very dangerous interpretation of the First Amendment. The clause
"prohibiting the free exercise thereof" is generally read as forbidding the
government from outlawing a religion or any practice that is intrinsic to a
religion (i.e., several Christian denominations were allowed to serve
Communion wine during Prohibition). What, then, is a religion and what is a
crackpot? That's a hard question. That's why we have courts and legislatures
instead of just a document.

   Mike Jones  |  AIX/ESA Development  |  mjones@donald.aix.kingston.ibm.com

Don't say yes until I finish talking.
	- Darryl F. Zanuck
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