Merry Christmas and a Heartfelt GFY to the Middletown Human Rights Commission

The Middletown Human Rights Commission convened Tuesday evening. The major item of business was to re-visit this blog's post of July 17, 2008. The commission held a special meeting on July 31, 2008, that was not properly noticed. I was the topic of that meeting, but unaware of it until after it happened.

At the July 31st unofficial meeting, the commission adapted the following statement:

"As a body, the Middletown Human Rights Commission is of the opinion that Mr. Gallagher's comments on his personal blog on July 17, 2008, were highly offensive and inappropriate. The Middletown Human Rights Commission works to encourage people to respect and tolerate one another."

Last night at the official meeting they adapted this statement:

"Even though Mr. Gallagher's motive may be without malice in his choice of language in his July 17, 2008 blog, it is the opinion of the Middletown Human Rights Commission that the use of the N-word is not conducive to developing good relationship between races, and therefore this kind of language should not be used in such discourse."

It is interesting that the commission seemed to soften their tone after hearing from me. I did not apologise for the post. I did not challenge their assertion from the July 31st meeting that the post was offensive. It was offensive. That was part of the point.

I did tell the commission that I had not said or done anything contrary to their work "to encourage people to respect and tolerate one another."

I told the commission that I had no interest in debating the post or my use the N-word. That I respected the individual opinions and those non-governmental organizations, like the NAACP, that condemned my speech.

However, as a government entity whose members are sworn to uphold the Constitution of the United States and the Constitution of the State of New Jersey, I told the commission members that they have NO RIGHT to issue an opinion about or to tell a private citizen what kind of language should or should not be uttered, unless there is a clear and present danger to public safety or national security or perhaps in the case of hate speech. No one from the public or the commission has alleged that I used the N-word in a hateful manner. In fact, the commission took it upon themselves to say that my language "may be without malice."

The First Amendment to the United States Constitution, U.S. Supreme Court opinions and Article I paragraph 6 of the New Jersey State Constitution protects me from the Middletown Human Rights Commission, any other manners police or kangaroo court.

I am not inclined to spend the resources to challenge the MHRC's right to issue such an opinion because, while they are all nice people individually, as a commission they are irrelevant for all practical purposes. In the 11 years that I have been an active member of the Middletown community, I didn't even know the commission existed until they decided to tell me how to speak. It is not clear to me what they have ever done in 40 years to "encourage people to respect and tolerate one another."

I am going to send a copy of this post, and the others about the commission's actions to the Electronic Frontier Foundation. If they think it is worth litigating to stop the erosion of Free Speech Rights in this case, I will probably pursue such a course.

From what I am hearing, the commission may be disbanded next year anyway.