Free speech took on in the gut (kinda) at the UW yesterday.

Anti-abortion posters infuriate some students- Group brings forceful message to University of Washington campus

A small group of anti-abortion activists stood in the cold at the avowedly liberal University of Washington on Wednesday, bearing signs of dismembered, bloody fetuses. But despite the university’s commitment to free speech, Show The Truth Washington had a hard time making its point.

Several dozen students supporting abortion rights encircled the sign-bearers, shouting pro-choice slogans into a bullhorn. Some tried to bar a photographer from access to the gruesome pictures.

This person’s reaction to me epitomizes the contradiction between free speech and abuse:

"No thanks, I’m pro-choice," said Melissa Gipson, 18, waving off literature from one Show the Truth activist,

The correct response…. 

whom she called an "old bigot."

…and a not quote correct one.  Likewise this reaction is very telling about diversity and tolerance:

"I think it’s absurd that they’re here," said Grant Mandarino, 25, who is working on a graduate degree in comparative literature. "These people are not wanted. This is a pro-choice campus, and there isn’t a place for them here."

Ahh, I love the sound of tolerance…

Ok, to be clear here, I do no like the methods and tactics the group Show the Truth, and it’s director Ed Sauley use.  As I have noted before, I typically do not like demagoguing.  Proponants will defend it noting that it is not demagoguing to show the truth, but that is sophistry at best, since there is plenty of doubt about the validity of the images.  The fact is that if the weight of your arguments cannot win the day, and you must resort to emotionally charged images, then that says something for your position.

But they do have a right to speak.  Free speech at its core is only operative when you fully disagree with the person whom you respectfully allow to speak, perhaps speaking against it in turn.

The tactics often used against them, often go to far, such as:

At The Evergreen State College in Olympia, young people spray-painted and punctured their signs, scrawling "Sick lies, lies, lies" over a poster…

The fact is that there should be debate over abortion as it is hardly a clear cut ethical concept.  But I see no reason why said debate cannot be respectful.

Now, readers of my blog will immediately latch on to my personal element of hypocrisy.  I have clearly spoken against the rights of the Hillsboro Baptist church to preach their anti gay rhetoric at funerals, the most recent being their threat (unfullfilled at the last minute) to protest at the funeral of the Amish school girls murdered in Pennsylvania.

I see no hypocrisy.  I have clearly and consisently said that there needs to be elements of respect and rationality included in the equation.

This blog from last year highlights my core beliefs on it.

For my part, I regard it as a very necessary principle on a democracy, but one that has been terribly abused, like so many other modern issues. And don’t get me wrong, I think that freedom of speech (which makes my blog possible) should be protected. But I also think that somewhere along the way a sense of realism and responsibility needs to surface. I think we lost our understanding of what the value and cost of it is.