Connecticut: Where Ridicule is a Crime

[rangerrebew]

Connecticut: Where Ridicule is a Crime

by Alan M. Dershowitz
November 2, 2019 at 5:00 am
 

    Among the most fundamental First Amendment rights is to ridicule — regardless of the reason. The same is true of holding people or groups up to contempt. Were Connecticut's absurd statute to be upheld — which it will not be — it could be applied to comedians, op-ed writers, politicians, professors and other students.

    And what about "creed"? Is being a conservative or a Trump supporter a creed that cannot be ridiculed?... [T]herein lies its greatest danger: selective prosecution based on current political correctness. Precisely the kind of unpopular speech which the First Amendment was designed to protect...

    Such hateful expressions [Anti-Semitic, anti-Christian and anti-conservative] are not only tolerated, they are often praised as "progressive" by some of the same students and faculty members who would censor politically incorrect hate speech. Under the First Amendment, such selective censorship is intolerable.

    All who care about civil liberties, regardless of race, should now join with the racist students in opposing their criminal prosecution and demanding that the Connecticut statute be struck down as unconstitutional.

    The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) and the president of the university should lead the campaign against criminalizing speech that ridicules. Now that would take courage in our age of political correctness and at a time when the hard left is demanding "free speech for me but not for thee." But this is not an age in which courage is widely practiced, especially on university campuses, and most especially by administrators.

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/15108/connecticut-ridicule-censorship

[EasyAce]

The statute:

Section 53-37 - Ridicule on account of creed, religion, color, denomination, nationality or race.
Any person who, by his advertisement, ridicules or holds up to contempt any person or class of persons, on account of the creed, religion, color, denomination, nationality or race of such person or class of persons, shall be guilty of a class D misdemeanor.

Try to imagine if TBR were based in Connecticut.

Now, recall for the moment the ridicule heaped on politicians and other creatures, on all sides of the divide---ridiculing Trump, ridiculing pick-your-Democrat, Trumpers ridiculing Never Trumpers; Never Trumpers ridiculing Trumpers, ridiculing these or those outside the political (lack of) class, and so forth.

If TBR were based in Connecticut under its current anti-ridicule statute, we'd be helping to clog some jails.

Especially if some of us (appropriately) think aloud that Connecticut's anti-ridicule statute is, shall we say, ridiculous.