Dr. Shawn’s Blog

The First Amendment and Animal Cruelty

October 6, 2009 on 4:53 am | In General Posts | No Comments

As recently reported in many newspapers across the country, one of the issues the new Supreme Court will tackle this session involves the First Amendment and animal cruelty. Is it legal, under the free speech clause of the Constitution, to show pictures and videos of animal cruelty? This case results from the arrests of several people showing actual dogfights and instances of scantily clad high-heeled women crushing small rodents with their shoes.

While some argue that any form of free speech should be protected, including these horrible depictions of animal injury and death, others disagree, arguing that animal cruelty is illegal and depictions illegal activities such as these should also be illegal. Those arguing against allowing videos of animal cruelty to legally exist also rationally argue that the most serial murderers and rapists have histories of animal cruelty in their backgrounds.

I would argue that the First Amendment does not cover any and all forms of free speech. In order to understand this point of view, a simple history lesson is in order.

The First Amendment covering free speech was put into the Constitution by our founding fathers to protect POLITICAL speech. Remember that our founders came from countries ruled by kings and tyrants. Speaking out against the ruler was usually punishable by death. Our founders, in order to foster open debate about how we should be governed, wanted citizens of the United States to be able to freely protest against their leaders without criminal retribution. It was NOT the intention of our founders to allow anyone to say or do anything he or she wanted under the guise of “free speech.” There are regulations which govern speech, such as making it illegal to say something that is untrue about another person in an attempt to ruin the person’s reputation (slander.) Free speech was never meant to cover criminal activity or examples of every type of perversion a person can dream of and force upon society. It is certainly within the intent of the Constitution that governments, especially local governments, can restrict forms of speech that do not promote the “common good,” in keeping with however that local government defines “common good.”

With this history lesson in mind, and to promote the common good of our society, I would argue that the First Amendment covering freedom of speech does not apply to people depicting cruelty against animals or people.