Free Speech Double Standards.

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Mark Klinker

3/6/03

Essay 2.6

Free Speech Double Standards

        Though people may be opposed to them, we live in a world today that says it is alright to have double standards because they do exist.  Some say women cannot hold jobs just because they are women, and men are able just because they are men.  We hold men out of baseball for gambling, and allow others to stay instated even after repeat drug offenses.  Our freedom of speech is often looked upon as having many double standards.  The First Amendment has many different interpretations that can be used as a way to incriminate or protect a person.  “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances”(Constitution).  What does “Free Speech” actually mean?  

        Our forefathers left the interpretation up to us.  Through the years, these different interpretations have lead to many different forms of speech which are considered legal or illegal.  Speech is defined as any act of communication between two or more people.  Speech can either be given by words, actions, signs, or symbols.  Our state and federal legislatures must determine that at what point some of these words, actions, signs, and/or symbols are illegal.  Some person may find one thing offensive and another person may not, but free speech should be granted to the words, actions, signs, or symbols you use as a person that do not infringe on the rights of any other human being and is not considered offensive.

        The differing standards concerning what constitutes free speech need to be addressed.  For instance, you can walk into the Art Smithsonian in Washington D.C. with your children and expect to have a good time but end up turning the corner and see a huge naked woman painted on the wall or sculpted into a 10 foot figure without any warning.  These paintings should be censored and put into a section of the art museum with warnings around the entrances in order for people to not be subject to these provocative paintings unless they wish to view them.  What one person sees as “art”, another sees as pornography.  If Playboy pictures are not viewable in public places, then nude images should not be viewed because they show the same attributes of a nude body that pornographic images do.  These Playboy pictures are considered pornography for the mere fact that they are portrayed in a more provocative way to certain people.  There is no artistic merit if a child has to view a naked person.  

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In a 1973 case, Miller vs. California, the Supreme Court created a test for legal obscenity, which involved a set of requirements that must be met for material to be legally obscene… material is obscene if (1) the average person finds that it violates contemporary community standards; (2) the work taken as a whole appeals to a prurient interest in sex; (3) the works shows patently offensive sexual conduct; and (4) the work lacks serious redeeming literary, artistic, political, or scientific merit.(Miller, 167)

Who determines who the average person is, what is and is not sexual, and if it ...

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