By Chase Riddle
On Saturday, Aug. 28, conservative political guru Glenn Beck held a religious rally in Washington, D.C. called “Restoring Honor.” Now what makes this rally particularly interesting to us, as American citizens, is what happened in the same spot exactly 47 years ago: Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s “I Have a Dream” speech. The crowd of nearly 400,000 lined up from the steps of the Lincoln Memorial all the way to the Washington Monument, this time not for racial injustice but for what many are referring to as religious rebirth.
Beck reassured reporters that this gathering had nothing to do with politics – that it was strictly about religion. However, this statement became particularly hard to believe when he was followed onstage by big politicians like Sarah Palin and members of the newest conservative political powerhouse, the Tea Party.
“There’s nothing we can do that will solve the problems that we have… unless we solve it through God,” Beck told Fox News.
Regardless of whether this rally was for the purpose of promoting conservative political values or just revamping religion in our country, the timing may have been wrong.
Just a few blocks down the road at Dunbar High School, a student body of over 2,000 crowded into the football stadium to commemorate Dr. King’s “I Have a Dream” speech. This rally was led by the civil rights activist Rev. Al Sharpton who commented on Beck’s event, saying, “It is a disgrace to this day.” This ordeal is vital to us as American citizens, whether or not we are interested in politics, because it raises the always controversial question: When is freedom of speech too much?
Is there ever a point when we take freedom of speech too far? Is there ever a point when we should put our constitutional right aside because, morally, it may not be right? The producers and writers of the hit improvisational TV series, “Saturday Night Live,” experienced this problem in 2001, just after Sept. 11. The terrorist attacks were a terrible display of violence towards our country and thousands of people lost their lives that day. The violence was the last thing anyone wanted to talk about, even think about, and SNL had to determine how to incorporate it into the show. The producers and writers of the show met with Rudy Giuliani, then-mayor of New York City, to discuss the issue. Ultimately, the decision was made to have the New York firefighters who worked at Ground Zero come on the show and do a commemorative episode with, to many people’s surprise, no jokes. Two weeks later, however, Jimmy Fallon did a skit about Osama bin Laden.
The moral of the story is that SNL had the constitutional right to say whatever they wanted and to make fun of any part of the day of Sept. 11. But in the end, SNL decided to use discretion, seeing that millions of Americans were affected by the disaster, and called off the jokes for a couple weeks.
In dealing with freedom of speech, I feel like timing is the most important factor. If Glenn Beck’s rally was truly centered on religion, it would have been just as effective on any other day. Yes, Beck, as well as the rest of the United States, has the right to say what he pleases, when he pleases. But there is something deep down inside all of us that should tell us whether or not it’s the right time and place to voice that opinion. And maybe Aug. 28 at the Lincoln Memorial was the wrong time and place.
