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As the crusade to classify more and more points of view as hate speech marches apaceincluding the view that it is wrong to exclude individuals because of the color of their skin First Amendment supporters are resorting to a familiar rhetorical defense: The solution to bad speech is more speech.

The position appears commonsensical on both philosophical and practical grounds. John Stuart Mill, the classical defender of free speech, argued that the best way to understand your own position is to understand the intricacies of your opponents.

This mutual intellectual engagement not only benefits individuals by refining their own thinking, the process of give and take also benefits everyone by enabling the best ideas to float to the top, producing authentic moral, political, and economic progress over time.

This embrace of the fray has taken the colloquial form the marketplace of ideas. It evokes an energetic scene in which soap-box-perched defenders of diverse viewpoints compete for the loyalty of discerning listeners based on the strength of their arguments alone. It is a form of old-school inclusion: no idea is denied entry prima facie because the marketplace has faith in the virtue of civic and cultural patience, recognizing that ideas that may be considered inconceivable today may end up being celebrated tomorrowand vice versa.

Of course some of the barkers in the square are selling ideological snake oil, peddling viewpoints that should end up in the dust bin of history. But the reason the public can know when its being sold a bill of goods is because it can critically weigh the seductive, curly moustached claims against the positions of their soberer competitors. There may not be a winner every time in the exchange, but the vision assures us that, in the long arc of history, that capital-T Truth will always emerge as victor.

Whether the West has ever fully lived up to this ideal, it certainly looks quaint nowadays, if not dangerously nave. Whatever once existed of a shared space for good-faith ideological engagement has now been carved into territorial plots, each encircled with hyper-vigilant guardians of purity ready to prevent any potential heresies. The shared pursuit of a common truth, premised on an implicit social contract that recognizes the possibility that they might be right and I might be wrong from time to time, appears to have been abandoned, leaving even toleration itself as an intolerable option.

One of the epistemological and cultural transformations that has enabled this devolution takes the form of the claim that arguments cannot be evaluated independently of the person making them. The moral and political question is no longer What is being said? but rather, Who is saying it?

Ad hominem assessments of a positionthat is, either condemning or praising a viewpoint based upon the identity of the speaker rather than the soundness of the argumentused to be considered a logical fallacy. Now character deification or assassination, which becomes alarmingly less metaphorical by the day, determines both the victor and the spoils. Rallies engage in hero worship. Protesters in equally religious acts of demonization. And all of us get swept towards an ever-greater vulgar sophistry, one that has a major political party launching rhetorical attacks on the back of the F-bomb while its target gleefully troll-tweets like a teenager.

The upshot? Eighth graders14-year-oldshave been weaponized.

As the skirmishes blunder closer to total war, perhaps we can hope that a silent majority between the battle lines will rise up and demand a return to a Millian principle of free civil discourse as a way back to sanity. It is an encouraging thought. But it is also a credulous one.

The problem with the culture wars isnt that we arent talking to each other enough. Its that we are not talking to each other at all. In short, the greatest casualty of the relentless ideological tit-for-tat of the past decade has been the very grammar of moral argumentation itself, that which makes debate possible.

For a marketplace of ideas to function both as means of supplying diverse viewpoints and as a space that enables consumers to make educated decisions among them, there must be some set of shared rules and conviction that make the market itself possible. Indeed, it is these very rules that allow for the concept of comparative value at all: if we do not have a shared pricing structure, then all ideas are equally worthless and brand-loyalty can only be determined by arbitrarily grabbing whatever beliefs advance our interests.

What might some of these basic rules look like? Let me suggest a few.

A shared commitment to the search for truth as truth. Every vendor and consumer in the marketplace should recognize that what they are ultimately after is the truth; even those who come to the conclusion that there is no universal truth have, as any introductory philosophy course will highlight, embraced a belief they believe to be universally true. It is impossible to debate any point of view that refuses to acknowledge that it is a truth claim.

A shared commitment to demonstrating how your beliefs can and should be universalized. Merely asserting a position, without explaining how and why others could possibly assent to it, makes the position impossible to evaluate. For example, claiming that a belief, by definition, can only pertain to an individual or a community (e.g., only a man can understand this) is to admit, up front, that those outside the group have no reason to assent to anything you say.

A shared commitment to coherence. Saying, for example, truth is always perspectival or judging others is always wrong then proceeding to lament that someone is evil and must be resisted signals to others that the foundation of your beliefs lies in some form of emotivismi.e., I believe/feel it; therefore it is true, independent of any other logical consideration. Emotivist positions, especially those that are unapologetically incoherent, also cannot be evaluated or debated.

A shared commitment to methodological transparency and consistency. If you wear a shirt that says Dude, Do You Even Science? and cite Bill Nye as one of your intellectual heroes while also saying things like all human beings have an equal voice and should be respected or abortion is morally acceptable based on your scientific beliefs, you are engaged in methodological inconsistency, and it is likely that you are also embracing some form of emotivism. Science can certainly be a tool in moral reasoning, but it cannot, by itself, generate moral norms. This kind of methodological incoherence also prevents a position from being evaluated or debated.

A shared commitment to live according to your own beliefs and their implications. A sine qua non of any moral position is that those who espouse it both can and are willing to live according to its precepts. If, for example, you believe that all politicians who engage in sexually inappropriate behavior should be deemed unfit for office, then you should call for the ouster of everyone who engages in such behaviornot only those from opposing political parties. Debating someone who wants to profess one ideal and live according to another makes it hard to pinpoint what exactly they think and why they think it, which makes the evaluation of the position exceedingly difficult.

A shared commitment to factual accuracy and to recognizing the limitations of facts as a basis for moral reasoning. If you choose to live by fact, you should also be willing to die by the fact, no matter what narrative you want to advance. Likewise, you should recognize that facts, including polls, can certainly tell us empirically what is the case, but they can never tell us what should be the case. This means that non-empirical arguments, including religious arguments, must be part of the debate. The marketplace cannot function without them.

A shared commitment to listen carefully to each position, an openness to being wrong, and a rejection of ad hominen attacks. It pointless to enter a debate if the base starting point for all those involved in it is: There is no way you are right, and no way I am wrong. A marketplace implies that allegiances can change. Absent this possibility, the exchange of ideas is a purely academic exercise with no moral or civic value.

While these rules are not self-evident, they are necessary for any marketplace of ideas to exist and function. If we cant agree on the pursuit of truth as truth, universalization, coherence, consistency, and a commitment to abide by our own principles and listen to each other as the necessary buy ins to create and enter the market, its not clear a) how anyone could engage in debate if there are no fixed rules to what counts as an argument, and b) how anyone could possibly make a rationally defensible choice among the ideas in the marketplace.

The problem, however, is that we live during a reign of epistemological paradigms and political platforms that deliberately reject these foundational principles. Whatever other consequences that entails, it ultimately renders the claim the best solution to bad speech is more speech as completely meaningless. It doesnt matter how long or how much we talk if there is no shared basis for what constitutes rational speech. If this trend continues unchecked, it will eventually kill what remains of the marketplace. And when civil means of exchange collapse, its only natural for people to start fighting with weapons rather than words.

Matthew Petrusek is an assistant professor of theological ethics at Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles, and the founder of Wisefaith Ministries.

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How To Rescue The Marketplace Of Ideas From The Culture Wars Before It's Too Late - The Federalist

What if you were faced with a challenge to your faith by the full weight of politics, culture, and popular opinion? What if your entire livelihood came down to one choice between right and wrong? This is whats happening to my friend Jack Phillips, a baker. He is happiest when he has flour on his face and a wedding cake to decorate.

For years I was in a mens Bible Study with him. He is quiet, simple and completely without guile. We never knew that he would one day be at the forefront of the culture wars.

Yesterday the Supreme Court decided to take up his case.

Jack and his decades-old business, Masterpiece Cakeshop, are under tremendous fire. If you dont knowthe story, Jack was approached four years ago to make a cake for a gay couple who were wed in Massachusetts but had come home to Colorado. Jack said no. He politely told them it was against his belief, as a Christian, and he couldnt make the cake.

The State of Colorado Attorney Generals office filed a formal complaint. Even though the state didnt legally recognize the marriage (at the time), they are coming down on Jack for not catering to it. He was fined and his employees were forced to undergo reeducation training.

The question is simple. Should a private business owner be able to live out his faith and not violate his core principles, even when they go against popular culture? In America we used to be able to be different, to be protected.

It should be noted that Jack has also turned away cakes requested by those who want explicit language, violent images, and even Halloween themes. So he is an equal opportunity advocate for righteous living.

If Jack is forced to make gay cakes, would we also expand this logic to other businesses? Would we make a Muslim Halal butcher sell pork chops? Would we make a Jewish butcher sell bacon? Would we force Indian vegetarian restaurants to sell hamburgers?

And one other issue that screams out to me. Some are demanding respect and acceptance. But what about respect and acceptance for Jack Phillips and his strongly held beliefs?

Do we now force Quakers to take up arms and join the military? Should we force Jehovahs Witnesses to take blood? Should we take the hijabs away from Muslim women? If nothing else, our country was founded on the ability to live out your beliefs.

This is not Jack persecuting homosexuals. He would sell them anything, including a cake. He just wouldnt decorate it with those words. This is society persecuting Jack for his faith.

As David French writes in National Review,creative professionals should never be required to lend their unique talents to express any form of message they dislike. Dont make black lawyers oppose civil rights, dontmake liberal fashion designersdesign clothes for conservative politicians, anddont require racists to design cakes for interracial couples. Some people use liberty wisely. Some people abuse liberty for immoral ends. But we cant limit liberty only to the wise and just.

Many of you are small businessmen. What if you were faced with a similar dilemma? Or what if your employer asked you to do something that clearly violated your faith? Would you risk your livelihood for your position?Unlike too many of us, hes willing to turn away money if it goes against his principles.

Pray for Jack. Hes a good man, soft spoken, and not one for controversy. Hes not a crusader. Hes not a firebrand. Hes a simple baker who loves God and wants his business to reflect his principles. Hes an unlikely hero if Ive ever seen one. I need him to know that hes not alone. Locally, we are standing with him, giving him encouragement. The withering assaults of those on the other side are brutal.

All of this has me thinking. How deep are my convictions? Could I stand firm in my faith if my job were at stake

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How a simple baker ended up at the front of the culture wars - Patheos (blog)

The new case, Masterpiece Cakeshop v. Colorado Civil Rights Commission, No. 16-111, started in 2012, when the baker, Jack Phillips, an owner of Masterpiece Cakeshop in Lakewood, Colo., refused to create a cake for the wedding reception of David Mullins and Charlie Craig, who were planning to marry in Massachusetts. The couple filed discrimination charges, and they won before a civil rights commission and in the courts.

This has always been about more than a cake, Mr. Mullins said. Businesses should not be allowed to violate the law and discriminate against us because of who we are and who we love.

Mr. Phillips, who calls himself a cake artist, argued that two parts of the First Amendment its protections for free expression and religious freedom overrode a Colorado anti-discrimination law and allowed him to refuse to create a custom wedding cake.

David Cortman, one of Mr. Phillipss lawyers, said the case concerned fundamental rights. Every American should be free to choose which art they will create and which art they wont create without fear of being unjustly punished by the government, he said.

In 2015, a Colorado appeals court ruled against Mr. Phillips. Masterpiece does not convey a message supporting same-sex marriages merely by abiding by the law and serving its customers equally, the court said.

In a Supreme Court brief, Mr. Phillipss lawyers said he is happy to create other items for gay and lesbian clients. But his faith requires him, they said, to use his artistic talents to promote only messages that align with his religious beliefs.

Thus, the brief said, he declines lucrative business by not creating goods that contain alcohol or cakes celebrating Halloween and other messages his faith prohibits, such as racism, atheism, and any marriage not between one man and one woman.

The brief said Mr. Mullins and Mr. Craig could have bought a cake from another baker and in fact easily obtained a free wedding cake with a rainbow design from another bakery.

In response, the couples lawyer wrote that it is no answer to say that Mullins and Craig could shop somewhere else for their wedding cake, just as it was no answer in 1966 to say that African-American customers could eat at another restaurant.

In a second development concerning gay and lesbian couples, the Supreme Court reaffirmed on Monday its 2015 decision recognizing a constitutional right to same-sex marriage, ruling that states may not treat married same-sex couples differently from others in issuing birth certificates.

The majority decision was unsigned. Justice Neil M. Gorsuch, joined by Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel A. Alito Jr., dissented.

The case concerned an Arkansas law about birth certificates that treats married opposite-sex couples differently from same-sex ones. A husband of a married woman is automatically listed as the father even if he is not the genetic parent. Same-sex spouses are not.

The case, Pavan v. Smith, No. 16-992, was brought by two married lesbian couples who had jointly planned their childs conception by means of an anonymous sperm donor. State officials listed the biological mother on the childrens birth certificates and refused to list their partners, saying they were not entitled to a husbands presumption of paternity.

The Arkansas Supreme Court ruled against the women, saying that it does not violate equal protection to acknowledge basic biological truths.

Obergefell v. Hodges, the 2015 United States Supreme Court decision, listed birth certificates among the governmental rights, benefits and responsibilities that typically accompany marriage.

In its unsigned opinion, the majority said on Monday that the Arkansas Supreme Court had erred in failing to apply the 2015 decision to birth certificates. Obergefell proscribes such disparate treatment, the opinion said. As we explained there, a state may not exclude same-sex couples from civil marriage on the same terms and conditions as opposite-sex couples.

Arkansas uses birth certificates, Mondays opinion said, to give married parents a form of legal recognition that is not available to unmarried parents. It continued, Having made that choice, Arkansas may not, consistent with Obergefell, deny married same-sex couples that recognition.

In dissent, Justice Gorsuch said the court had acted rashly in not asking for briefs and argument on the question presented in the case.

To be sure, Obergefell addressed the question whether a state must recognize same-sex marriages, he wrote. But nothing in Obergefell spoke (let alone clearly) to the question addressed by the Arkansas Supreme Court.

The statute in question establishes a set of rules designed to ensure that the biological parents of a child are listed on the childs birth certificate, Justice Gorsuch wrote. Before the state supreme court, the state argued that rational reasons exist for a biology-based birth registration regime, reasons that in no way offend Obergefell like ensuring government officials can identify public health trends and helping individuals determine their biological lineage, citizenship or susceptibility to genetic disorders.

In an opinion that did not in any way seek to defy but rather earnestly engage Obergefell, the state supreme court agreed, Justice Gorsuch wrote. And it is very hard to see what is wrong with this conclusion for, just as the state court recognized, nothing in Obergefell indicates that a birth registration regime based on biology, one no doubt with many analogues across the country and throughout history, offends the Constitution.

Follow Adam Liptak on Twitter @adamliptak

Get politics and Washington news updates via Facebook, Twitter and in the Morning Briefing newsletter.

A version of this article appears in print on June 27, 2017, on Page A1 of the New York edition with the headline: Cake Case Takes Court Back to the Culture Wars.

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Justices to Hear Case on Religious Objections to Same-Sex Marriage - New York Times

By John Gallagher

The Democrats had pinned a lot of hopes on the special election in Georgias sixth congressional district. The seat, which was held by now Secretary of Health and Human Services Tom Price, has been reliably Republican for years; it was the seat that Newt Gingrich held when he was in Congress. But Democrats thought that the high number of college-educated voters in the district made it ripe for capitalizing on uneasiness about President Trump.

Of course, that was wrong. But there was an ample sign that the district was never going to flip for a socially liberal candidate. And thats the districts history.

The district encompasses the northern suburbs of Atlanta, including a chunk of Cobb County. In the early 1990s, Cobb County was one of the chief battlegrounds of the culture war. In 1993,the County Commissioners passed a resolutionto openly and vigorously supports the current community standards and established state laws regarding gay lifestyles. The vote was greeted by Amens from the audience, and a pastor held a sign outside of the commission chambers that read Praise God for AIDS.

The vote resulted in a national controversy, butit was hardly a surprise.A portion of the interstate running through the county is named for a former John Birch Society leader. In the 1980s, the town of Kennesaw passed a resolution requiring all residents to own a gun. Even as the country expanded as Atlanta itself grew, the county maintained a distinctively conservative flavor.

The impact of the Cobb County resolution was more than symbolic, much to the countys detriment. As a sign of disapproval, the Olympic torch bypassed Cobb County on its way to the Atlanta Olympics in 1996, and the Olympic volleyball game was moved to a different venue.

Eventually the county moved on to other issues, but it has never entirely rid itself of its homophobic past. The county commissioner race in 2012replayed the issue,as one of the pro-resolution commissioners sought to return to office. (The former commissioner, Bill Byrne, said he regretted his vote, because he has a lesbian daughter. He lost anyway.) A state legislator from Cobb introduced a religious liberty bill last year thatwould have repealed conflicting laws,otherwise known as nondiscrimination protections.

In short, a good chunk of the sixth congressional district was never going to be fertile territory for a Democrat like Jon Ossoff. Moreover, Republicans did their best to tar Ossoff as a rabid liberal,tying him to Nancy Pelosi and San Francisco values.San Francisco loves them some Jon Ossoff,a man in one ad intoned.

Most of the media played these ads as tarnishing Ossoffs carefully cultivated moderate image. But the ads were also a dog whistle. For religious conservatives, San Francisco is synonymous with all things gay. San Francisco has long been used by the religious right as shorthand for a modern-day Sodom, and we all know who put the sodomy in Sodom.

So ultimately, Ossoff was probably fighting a losing battle all along. (He wasnt an ideal candidate, but the winner, Karen Handel, was pretty inept herself.) Democrats will debate for months to come whether a different platform and different candidate could have convinced more voters to turn out. But the lesson of the election may be something entirely different: the culture wars are lingering, and they are still defining our political landscape.

This article originally appeared on Queerty

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The Special Election in Georgia Shows that the Culture War and Homophobia Aren't Over Yet - The Good Men Project (blog)

Among the stranger sights in Portland political unrest in recent months: the alliance of the Multnomah County Republican Party with the movement of nationalists, militia men and racial provocateurs known as the "alt-right."

An anonymous threat to attack the GOP in an April community parade led to the parade's cancellationand to claims that the party was harboring white supremacists in its midst.

Multnomah County Republican Party chair James Buchal speaks at a June 4 free speech rally in Terry Schrunk Plaza. (Tom Berridge)

A new GOP fundraising letter shows that Buchal is taking the rhetoric further: He's asking Republicans to donate to the local chapter to battle "threats of Leftist violence."

"Republicans have been losing the culture wars for a long time, but violent attacks against freedom of speech and assembly by Republicans may mark the last battle in the culture wars," writes Buchal. "The rise of a totalitarian Leftist culture that rejects the First Amendment and permits no disagreement on fundamental political disputes threatens the end of American ideals. Their propaganda is simple, evil and wrong: they call any and all patriotism a form of bigotry."

Dueling rallies trade jeers on June 4. (Joe Michael Riedl)

He repeats his plan to hire Oath Keepers as security guards, and claims that protests by antifa are making Portland a dangerous place for conservatives. "Organized bands of masked thugs who call conservatives fascists or Nazis are rising rapidly within the city," he writes.

And Buchal says the Multnomah County GOP is running out of moneyas a direct result of left-wing intimidation.

"Most recently, we lost the restaurant venue where we were able to hold our membership meetings without rental fees," he writes, "because of the threat of Leftist violence."

Buchal tells WW he has yet to successfully recruit new active members from the protests or bring in money from the letter.

Buchal says he doesn't identify with the alt-right, or support protesters looking for a fight.

When asked about growing fears in Portland about the threat of violence from right-wing extremists and neo-Nazi groups, he said that was nonsense.

"Projection is a classic psychological phenomenon," he says. "In the city of Portland there's no cultural hostility toward Democrats, and I don't see any threats of violence against Democrats."

His letter says the June 4 rally, held in the wake of two murders on a MAX train allegedly committed by a white supremacist, offered "positive messages."

"We saw many young people who are sick and tired of being called racists and white supremacists for standing in support of Western civilization and cores conservative principles like the rule of law," he writes.

Street preachers hold the Christian flag at a right-wing free speech rally in Terry Schrunk Plaza on June 4, 2017. (Tom Berridge)

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Multnomah County Republicans Raise Funds By Alleging "Threats of Leftist Violence" - Willamette Week