The Written Word
for August 16, 2000

Yesterday I had an interesting segue from Mary Woo Sims, the gay Chair of the Human Rights Commission to Stan Persky, the gay philosophy teacher at Capilano College. They are both very nice people but have dramatically different views of the world especially as it relates to free speech.

Ms Sims scares the pants, so to speak, off me because she would ban free speech that hurts. I would not nor, as we will see in a moment, would Mr Persky.

Now it is no doubt a very bad thing socially to call people nasty names. Words like kike and nigger have no place in polite society – indeed they form no part of decent society. The question is, however, whether or not the state should interfere when people say bad things about others.

I certainly would urge that schools do all within their power to teach and persuade our young people to behave civilly and not call people, especially minorities, bad things and I have no trouble with them punishing those who do. Where I draw the line is when the state steps in and assuages hurt feelings with awards of damages.

I asked Ms Sims whether or not a restaurateur, specializing in a youthful, zestful sort décor, could refuse to hire, as a server, someone grossly overweight or otherwise unattractive. I had in mind a chain like Earls which has wholesome, good looking (not to say pretty or handsome) young men and women doing their serving. Her answer was long and convoluted but at the end seemed to say that the employer had no choice but to hire some person if they were otherwise competent. Since these young people are invariably hired without experience and as trainees we have to assume that the long arm of the law would penalize employers who didn’t accept as trainees anyone who came along since none of the prospective employees have any experience to start with.

I would agree that employers should hire one and all but the question here is whether or not the state should be able to compel them to.

In a combination of questions which were partly on air and partly off, for reasons that will become obvious, I asked Mr Persky if he would be offended if I called him, with a sneer, a gay Jew – which he is. Persky said that he would be offended but that he would not expect any help from the state. What if I called him a goodam fucking Jew queer? Same answer from Mr Persky.

I find myself firmly in Persky’s corner on this. Free speech can and should be curtailed by the state in some circumstances. In wartime, one cannot give succour to the enemy. One cannot use free speech to incite criminal activities and so on. If I were to call Stan Persky a goodam fucking Jew queer in circumstances which would put him in some sort of peril, again that’s an exception to free speech which is understandable and defensible.

The trouble with legislating against the insult is where does it all end when the state has this power? Can politicians claim immunity from all insults? If I were to call a politician a goddam fucking pettifogging, parish pump politician should I be hailed before the beak?  

The question is where society wishes to err. Where is the line to be drawn? So that any doubt be resolved in favour of the, so to speak, “insultee”? Or do we say that in a free society people will be wounded by words and unless clear harm, beside hurt feelings can be demonstrated, the state will butt out?

In coming down on the side of the latter, I by no means think that the slur should be encouraged. Quite the opposite, it should be discouraged by the severe disapproval of decent society manifesting itself in condemnation of transgressors and in education of the young.

But it is not a matter for the courts, kangaroo or otherwise.