Free Speech?

NBC Connecticut (http://www.nbcconnecticut.com/news/local/ACLU-School-Should-Allow-Anti-Gay-T-Shirt-157243065.html) has an article about a Wolcott, CT student that wore a t-shirt to school that featured a rainbow with a slash through it. According to the article, "Seth Groody wore the shirt bearing a rainbow with a slash through it to Wolcott High School on April 20, a day designated to promote awareness of the bullying of gay students, according to the ACLU of Connecticut." The school required him to take the shirt off, prompting the ACLU to file a letter of protest with the school principal.


The facebook link to that article asks the question, "Where do you stand on this? Should a student in Wolcott be allowed to wear a shirt with an anti-gay message to school?" It's an interesting question from a Christian perspective.


On the one hand, surely Christians should be in favor of free speech (and this would qualify). After all, if all inflammatory speech were to be banned, what would that mean for the gospel? The message of Christ is a divisive one, even if proclaimed in love, as it should be. The Apostle Paul wrote in 2 Corinthians 2:14-17, "14 But thanks be to God, who in Christ always leads us in triumphal procession, and through us spreads the fragrance of the knowledge of him everywhere. 15 For we are the aroma of Christ to God among those who are being saved and among those who are perishing, 16 to one a fragrance from death to death, to the other a fragrance from life to life." Jesus Himself said in Matthew 10:34, “Do not think that I have come to bring peace to the earth. I have not come to bring peace, but a sword."


In other words, the message of Christ, even though He is love and we are to communicate it in love, is divisive and inflammatory. It is inflammatory to those who do not wish to follow Him, so much so that many times Christians are afraid of even saying His name for fear of the reaction.  So if we as Christians believe that divisive or offensive or inflammatory speech should be outlawed, then the most important message one could ever share - the glorious gospel - would be off the table.  We must, therefore, be advocates of free speech.

However, freedom comes with responsibility.  If we are to have freedom of speech, how should we use that freedom?  Paul wrote in Galatians 5:1, "It was for freedom that Christ set us free; therefore keep standing firm and do not be subject again to a yoke of slavery."  That is, we have been freed from the bondage of sin, but we have a responsibility to use that freedom in a way that is good and right and noble, not in a way that dishonors the One who freed us.  If I now have the freedom of speech, I need to use that freedom responsibly and say things that are productive.  Paul put it this way in Ephesians 4:29, "Let no unwholesome talk proceed from your mouths, but only such a word as is good for edification according to the need of the moment, so that it will give grace to those who hear."  

If I am to have freedom of speech, I need to use that freedom to build others up, to speak the truth in love, to help move people towards God, not away from Him.  Whatever one thinks of homosexuality, the t-shirt that Seth Groody wore appears on the surface to not merely be a statement on the morality of homosexuality, but rather about gay and lesbian people.  And yes, there is a difference between the two.  

Christians ought to embrace free speech, even if it means that some offensive things get said.  But we should encourage personal responsibility and proper use of that freedom.