Posted by Eugene Volokh:
Jesus Christ!
http://volokh.com/archives/archive_2009_07_26-2009_08_01.shtml#1248796750
[1]Mark Tapscott (Washington Examiner) writes:
It's ... long been the rule among prudent politicians with national
aspirations to say nothing unkind about anybody's religious faith.
But the silence that has greeted [2]Vice President Joe Biden's use
of "Jesus Christ" as an expletive in an on-the-record interview
with The Wall Street Journal, suggests that such prudence has been
tossed aside.
Biden isn't the first nor will he be the last politician to abuse
the name of the man revered for two millennia by Christians of
every denomination as the Savior, the God-Man who created and
sustains the universe, and who at His Second Coming will someday
return to Earth to judge all men. Jesus Christ is, in short, a
heavy dude, if He is indeed the dude He claimed to be.
I have no idea what the vice president believes about Jesus. What I
do know is that he apparently thought nothing of taking the name
described in Holy Scripture "as the only name given under Heaven by
which men are saved" and used it the same way most people routinely
use the words "damn," "hell," and others unfit to print in a family
newspaper.
Having myself uttered such words on too many occasions, I can
hardly fault Biden if this particular incident was simply an
unintentional slip of the tongue. One would assume that if such was
the case, Biden would have by now offered an apology.
But there is no indication on the public record that he has since
recognized the offensiveness of what he said and apologized or
otherwise sought to make amends. Queries to Biden's spokesmen went
unanswered yesterday.
So the question must be asked: Did Biden intend to offend millions
of his countrymen who worship Jesus, one of whom happens to be his
boss, or did he just not care if they were offended?
Either way, had Biden used the name Mohammed in this manner,
Muslims would be crying foul. Quite possibly rioting in the
streets, to boot. And if the vice president had used "gay" or
"Black" as swear words, folks would be rightfully angry about that,
too.
Hate speech is hate speech, whether it is aimed at Christians,
Muslims, Gays, or African-Americans. Whether or not it should
prosecuted or, as Thomas Jefferson argued, left undisturbed as a
monument to tolerance and the strength of rational argument is a
different issue. Here, it is sufficient to note that hate speech is
speech meant to demean, ridicule, and discredit all who are
associated with its target.
So where is the outrage about Biden's hate speech against
Christians? We've not heard a peep of protest from the Southern
Baptist Convention. Nothing from the U.S. Conference of Catholic
Bishops. Nothing from the Presbyterian Church U.S.A. Nothing from
the United Methodist Church.
And neither have we heard from Biden's boss, whose spokesman had
other things to do yesterday than discuss another veep flap....
Biden's uncorrected cursing is indicative of the slow strangling by
the unrelenting forces of political correctness of the religious
tolerance that is Christianity's greatest gift to America.
We've reached a point in which the nation's second highest official
can without fear insult and degrade the name revered by millions of
Americans, but woe unto him who says a word even remotely critical
of the PC flavors of the day.
It may well be that actual insults of Christians or Christianity are
treated less seriously by some than actual insults of Muslims or
Islam, or of other groups. And I agree that the term "hate speech" has
been much stretched by some people.
But it seems to me that the typical use of "Jesus Christ" as an
expletive -- the Biden quote was, "I can see Putin sitting in Moscow
saying, 'Jesus Christ, Iran gets the nuclear weapon, who goes first?'
Moscow, not Washington." -- is not "hate speech" under any sensible
definition of "hate speech." It is generally not intended to convey
hatred of Christianity, or even hostility to Christianity, nor "to
demean, ridicule, and discredit all who are associated with
[Christianity]." Nor is it generally reasonably understood that way.
To be sure, it is seen as offensive by some Christians. My sense is
that most Christians, including devout ones, view it as at most mildly
offensive -- a sign of lack of sufficient respect for Christianity and
for one of the Commandments. But I doubt that most Christians see it
as even deeply offensive, much less a sign of an intention to express
hostility to Christianity.
And this, I think, is pretty clearly visible from normal practices
among Christians in a mostly Christian country. "Jesus Christ!,"
"Jesus!," and the like, are in my experience pretty common
exclamations. This both reflects their being seen as being at most
only slightly offensive, and further reinforces that: A typical
Christian, I suspect, would have heard the words used often this way
by other Christians (even if not the most devout ones), and would
therefore not associate the words with a likely message of hostility
to Christianity. He may disapprove of the words, but he wouldn't
interpret them as deliberate insults, or as "hate speech" "aimed at
Christians."
In fact, Tapscott himself acknowledges that he's used Jesus Christ as
an exclamation himself, and not just once or twice. Why would he have
done that if the phrase were "meant to demean, ridicule, and discredit
all who are associated with its target" (presumably all Christians)?
Why would he have done that if it wasn't just at most mildly
disrespectful, but "insult[ing] and degrad[ing] the name revered by
millions of Americans"? I take it that he doesn't regularly mean to
demean, ridicule, and discredit Christians, or insult and degrade
Jesus's name. The fact that he -- and others -- use "Jesus Christ" as
an expletive suggests that it is not indeed inherently seen as
insulting, degrading, demeaning, ridiculing, or discrediting of Christ
or of Christians. (Naturally, it could be used in a context where
other factors suggest that the speaker is trying to insult Christians;
but no such contextual cues are evident in Biden's quote.)
Nor is it particularly telling that Biden didn't apologize. Presumably
he doesn't see there much reason to apologize here, or he thinks that
an apology would become more of a story than the original quote
itself. One might argue that this bespeaks insensitivity to the views
of those who are offended by the taking of Jesus's name in vain, but
even if that's so, it still doesn't suggest any attempt on Biden's
part to insult, degrade, deman, ridicule, or discredit.
Now I think that the lack of Christian condemnation of Biden's use of
"Jesus Christ" is a sign of maturity on the part of most Christians.
Even if you think that the term is mildly offensive, there's little
reason to publicly condemn such mildly offensive behavior, or even to
call for a public apology. The violation of the Commandments would not
itself be much of a basis for public condemnation; most Christians
rightly don't publicly excoriate politicians for worshipping idols, or
breaking the Sabbath, and see it as chiefly a matter between the
politician and God. And the offensiveness of the words to the hearer,
I suspect, is quite mild, for the reasons I mentioned above -- there
was likely no deliberate desire to insult, and thus likely no
reasonable perception of insult, so at most there is a slight sort of
disrespect of what others see as holy.
But even if there is a basis for some mild condemnation here, accusing
Biden of "hate speech" -- especially under the "speech meant to
demean, ridicule, and discredit all who are associated with its
target" definition -- strikes me as simply inaccurate, given the way
Biden's use of "Jesus Christ" was likely to have been intended and
reasonably understood.
I should note that I've corresponded briefly with Mark Tapscott about
this, and confirmed that his argument was indeed serious, rather than
an attempt to perform a reductio ad absurdum of various "hate speech"
claims. (I thank him for his gracious responses to my questions, which
led me to refine my argument in some measure.)
References
1.
http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/columns/Biden_s-_Jesus-Christ_-expletive-is-hate-speech_-8027718-51811897.html
2.
http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/blogs/beltway-confidential/Will-Biden-apologize-for-using-Christs-name-as-a-curse-word-51706282.html
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