I normally don’t like Rush Limbaugh very much. Even on the rare occasion that I agree with something he’s saying, I just find him abrasive and unlikeable, and it’s not too often that I’d find myself making the effort to support his agenda. However, today is one of those rare days.
Mr. Limbaugh just wrote an editorial for the Wall Street Journal in which he calls on President Obama to keep the airwaves open and not take any action, whether direct or indirect, to censor others’ opinions. For once, I agree. I happen to be a strong proponent of free speech, so while I don’t like a lot of what Mr. Limbaugh has to say, not to mention a lot of the other junk that’s out there on the radio and TV, I completely support their right to say it.
Especially for Christians in this country, it’s easy for us to see or hear things that we don’t like being broadcast, and begin to make calls for laws that ban certain kinds of speech. This is a natural response, since we don’t want ourselves or our children to have to listen to what we consider offensive. However, if we begin passing laws banning speech that we find objectionable or offensive, that leads down a slippery slope from which it may be difficult to recover.
Think about this: How long do you think it will take after a law is passed banning something that offends someone for people to start writing laws that ban evangelism? How about laws that ban condemning sin? Maybe laws that say churches have to give equal time to speakers from other religions? It may seem far-fetched, but to citizens of many other nations, these restrictions are already all too real.
The founders of our country had a lot of wisdom in explicitly affirming many of the rights that are available to us, and it would be foolish to try to strike them down because we are offended or don’t agree with what someone else is saying. I hope that Christians around the country will be able to support free speech, even if they don’t like what they hear, so that our children and their children after them can still share the gospel openly and freely.
