I know my personal views about sexuality and proclivity, expressed on my personal web site, cost me at least one possible job, and maybe a couple others as well, over the years. If my views on these issues were to be discovered on the internet, either on a personal site, or some social network, by someone in the HR department of the Fortune 150 I work for, I would probably be summarily dismissed. So, the "chilling effect" has already happened, and it's only working against one side of the ideological spectrum. Oh, sure, we still have "freedom of speech" in the US, but only if it's politically correct. Otherwise, you'll also be exercising your "freedom to be out of work."
It sounds like you want to have your cake and eat it too. I believe our right to free speech is the most important thing we have. However, if someone reads a post they don't like why should they HAVE to hire you?
As an employer if I read something that genuinely offended me (I have no idea if that's even possible) I wouldn't hire them. I hire people I think are going to make the team better and that I think we would want to work with.
So, yeah, if that hot take you wrote on the internet was a tad incendiary, why is it bad that people passed on you?
I'd like to think that I'm evolved enough that I could disagree with someone's opinion and work just fine with them- but if what they said struck a chord, I can't say that I wouldn't pass on them.
At the end of the day your freedom keeps you out of jail and my freedom gives me the ability to say no thanks. What you say in the public square isn't consequence free.
I believe I specifically said that I understand my free speech has a cost. Now, I don't know if you'll get this, since my original comment seems hidden or shadowbanned from the main discussion now, which just goes to prove the point brilliantly.
What I had originally written on my personal web site was standard, old-fashioned Christian teaching about homosexuality, based on the Bible. Hate the sin; love the sinner. That sort of thing. (No, it wasn't incendiary calls to violence against people.)
If I'm not allowed to say what I want to say, by being fired by my employer and blackballed from further employment, or by being downvoted to oblivion or filtered or shadowbanned by Ycombinator or Facebook or Reddit, or having my account cancelled at the web host provider I use, what good are my Constitutional rights of freedom of speech and religion? You may find this situation wonderful because you hate what I have to say, but I think everyone should find the trend alarming.
Maybe you really are arguing that freedom of speech and religion only grants someone the right to not being jailed when all they have left is to stand, homeless, on the street corner with a sign, shouting at passerby -- and then they'll be jailed for not having a permit, or something -- but I would have thought that the Constitution meant the First Amendment for more protection than that.
And, furthermore, if it's only Christians that are being affected by these discriminations, then hasn't the government declared a side? All this talk on the left about how the US government is prejudiced against anything other than Christianity, and, yet, I have no doubt that my company would LOVE foreign nationals to preach their religion to people in the work place, when I would be fired for it, if overheard.
I believe both of my comments make it evident that I'm perfectly clear on this. In fact, I don't see how it would be possible to argue what I WAS saying without understanding this. But, hey, I've been wrong before; I will be again.
> "If I'm not allowed to say what I want to say, by being fired by my employer and blackballed from further employment, or by being downvoted to oblivion or filtered or shadowbanned by Ycombinator or Facebook or Reddit, or having my account cancelled at the web host provider I use, what good are my Constitutional rights of freedom of speech and religion? You may find this situation wonderful because you hate what I have to say, but I think everyone should find the trend alarming."
If a private employer decides to fire you because of something you said, that's not a violation of your First Amendment rights. Or are you trying to argue that the First Amendment should encompass more than government restrictions on speech? If so that's not clear from what you wrote - it sounds like you believe it already should protect that.
> "Maybe you really are arguing that freedom of speech and religion only grants someone the right to not being jailed when all they have left is to stand, homeless, on the street corner with a sign, shouting at passerby -- and then they'll be jailed for not having a permit, or something -- but I would have thought that the Constitution meant the First Amendment for more protection than that."
No one is argueing that. That's exactly what the First Amendment says (only pertains to government restrictions).
In the words in Inigo, "No, there is too much. Let me sum up."
By reason of the First Amendment and the Equal Protection clause, all manner of discrimination has been made illegal. All except discrimination against conservative or Christian speech. I fear for my job if I so much am overheard to speak on these issues in a way that would imply that I think someone else is morally wrong.
