What is hate speech?

By Tom Quiner

The conference was going to pursue the intellectual merits of traditional marriage and sexual integrity.

The non-religiously nor politically affiliated Stanford Anscombe Society approached Stanford Graduate Student Council for funding for the “Communicating Values Conference.” Here is what the conference was all about:

“Our aim is to help university students and young adults to promote the values of marriage, family, and sexual integrity to the broader popular culture. Featuring speakers at the forefront of this effort, the conference will allow students to network with other individuals who are willing to engage in intellectual and civil discourse about the issues of marriage, family, and sexual integrity.”

The Council brusquely turned them down, labeling the subject matter (traditional marriage) hate speech.

Then there was the case of Dan Cathy, CEO of Chick-fil-A. He was accused of hate speech by the mayor of Washington D.C. for supporting a one-man, one-woman definition of marriage.

Then there was the former CEO of Mozilla, Brendan Eich, who was forced to resign from the company he helped to build for supporting a traditional marriage ballot initiative years earlier. He was deemed a “hater.”

I could go on, and on, and on, but you get the idea. Liberals label as “hate speech” any utterance of an idea at odds with their world view.

This seems like old news, I know. But it’s not.

Facebook has just announced new “community standards” on what they deem to be unacceptable content on their popular social media platform. The nefarious content includes:

√ Terrorist activity (good).

√ Organized criminal activity (good).

√ Graphic images when they are shared for sadistic pleasure or to celebrate or glorify violence (good).

√ Nudity, when gratuitous (good).

√ Revenge porn (good).

√ Risk of physical harm (good).

√ Direct threats to public safety (probably good, unless free speech is considered the threat).

√ Hate speech (maybe not so good).

So what is hate speech? Here’s how the American Bar Association defines it:

Hate speech is speech that offends, threatens, or insults groups, based on race, color, religion, national origin, sexual orientation, disability, or other traits.

So if you merely offend or insult a group by expressing a view contrary to their delicate liberal sensibilities, your free speech rights are at grave risk.

We’re watching the left systematically chill free speech by wielding the political correctness club against conservative thought. This suppression is toxic to our First Amendment rights.

We need a better definition of hate speech than that provided by the American Bar Association. I like the one proposed by Dr. Mike Adams of the University of North Carolina-Wilmington:

“Hate speech is verbal communication that induces anger due to the listener’s inability to offer an intelligent response.”

This really gets to the heart of the matter.

Dr. Adams goes further, describing the two forms of “hate speech:”

1) Speech that is too dumb to merit an intelligent response, and 2) Speech for which the listener is too dumb to offer an intelligent response.

The common thread between these two forms of “hate speech” is anger, explains Dr. Adams:

“They both induce anger in the listener, regardless of whether the speaker expressed his view with any feeling of hatred or animosity.”

Here’s where things get good, where Dr. Adams exposes the root cause of liberal hypocrisy concerning the definition of so-called hate speech:

“And this leads to an understanding (see bold sentence below) of the apparent hypocrisy of gays and feminists who a) cry “hate speech” (while actually crying in some cases) against conservatives who do not wish to kill gays and feminists, and b) tolerate “hate speech” by Islamic fascists who really do wish to kill gays and feminists.

“Islamic advocacy of violence is not classified as “hate speech” because it induces fear, not anger.”

Let’s face it, conservative thought on issues like the sanctity of life, traditional marriage, pay equity, and more are smart and reasonable. When confronted with sound arguments against their moral relativistic theology, most liberals get mad and accuse you of hate. And hate is bad, so “hate speech” should be banned (unless you’re a Muslim).

That’s why Facebook’s community standards concern me. What do they consider “hate speech?”