Preserving Your Right to Be Offended

I am continually amazed at the number of people who believe that the Constitution guarantees them the right to not be offended. The First Amendment, by definition, allows me, or you, to say anything; whether it offends someone or not. The only limitation is slander, in that you cannot say something that is untrue if it causes damage or harm to someone else. Actually you can still say it; you just have to be willing to pay for the resulting damages.

This myopic view of self-expression is most pronounced among the religiously challenged, the morally challenged and the sexually challenged. Those who espouse that it is their right to be able to walk down the streets of America and not be offended by any display of religion. Those who want to live by relative truth, depending on what the definition of “is” is at that moment, and don’t want to be accountable to absolute truth. Those who haven’t figured out whether they are male, female or whatever, and don’t want to have their process of exploration dampened by guilt.

Yet even these dissenters all agree that they are a small minority in this country, and as such, are eligible for protection under the Constitution. But this raises a serious contradiction. I have always been taught that democracy, or even a republic, is ruled by the common consent of the majority of the population. This is why elections are determined by a 51% margin. And changes to the rules by which we are governed have to be agreed upon by a 3/5 or 2/3 majority. Where does it say in the Constitution, the Amendments or even the Federalist Papers, that the will of the minority has the ability to supercede the will of the majority?

The only rights we posses in this country are guaranteed to individuals, not groups. We have the rights of expression, security and privacy. We have the right to assemble, choose our leaders and to determine our own destiny. We also have the right to disagree, to demand change and to see those changes realized when the majority agrees with the need for the changes.

With this in mind, why do the majority in this country, the 80% that have declared a religious belief and the 65% who regularly attend or practice their belief, have to hide in back rooms and shuttered meetinghouses? When 80% of the people in this country believe in a Supreme Being, why do the words, “one nation under God” and “in God we trust,” need to be stricken from our society? Why do minorities have the audacity to choose to move into a religious community because they like the environment and want to raise their children there; and then turn around immediately to criticize, demean and demand that the community change to their own personal preferences?

It reminds me of a line from the movie “The Age Of Innocence,” when the male lead is willing to break the arranged engagement to his fiancé to marry another that he really loves. His secret love, refusing to accept his sacrifice, says, “If you did, you would cease to be the very thing I love.”

Don’t they see,... or do they?