It passed an unconstitutional law to control social media moderation in the state, and Gov. Indeed, a federal court has already blocked enforcement of Florida’s so-called Stop WOKE Act to the extent that it limits free expression on public campuses and in private boardrooms.įlorida is one of the hot spots of right-wing censorship and punitive government. But others are aimed at speech in public universities and private corporations, where states have much less control. Many of those statutes are aimed at K-12 education, where the government has considerable control over teacher speech. The educational culture wars are inspiring a host of educational gag orders across states that purport to block advocacy of disfavored ideas about race and gender. Late last month the Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit held that New York’s so-called Boss Bill, which prohibits employers from discriminating against employees on the basis of their “reproductive health decision making,” may violate the expressive associational rights of pro-life organizations that require employees not to have abortions and to refrain from extramarital sex.īut no, I’m not letting red America off the hook. Newsom used his political power to punish a corporate position he opposed.Ĭalifornia is not alone in its efforts to suppress constitutionally protected rights. Gavin Newsom announced that the State of California would not renew a multimillion-dollar contract with Walgreens - not because Walgreens had failed to comply with its contractual obligations but rather because it had responded to Republican legal warnings and decided not to dispense an abortion pill in 21 red states. Let’s start with America’s progressive strongholds. The culture war is coming for American liberty - in red states and blue alike. A culture war waged against the civil liberties of your political opponents inflicts a double injury on dissenters: They don’t merely lose a vote they also lose a share of their freedom. It breaks the social compact by rendering political losers, in effect, second-class citizens. Losers of a given election still possess their basic civil liberties, and the combination of the right to speak and the right to vote provides them concrete hope for their preferred political outcomes.īut if a government both enacts contentious policies and diminishes the civil liberties of its current ideological opponents, then it sharply increases the stakes of political conflict. It empowers an elected government to enact even contentious new rules while protecting the most fundamental human rights of dissenting citizens. The Constitution of the United States, properly interpreted, provides a marvelous method for handling social conflict.
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