Expert: Michael Troy - 5/23/2002

Question
Can one publish their point of view on a religion calling it a cult and then proceeding to enumerate instances of sex within the religion without any basis or foundations; just to prove a point.?
vs/
How do major leaders get away with diffaming groups of people with many lies such as Arafat----the Jews (and these things are published in the paper.
Q.: how to respond to a student who puts forth such a question

Answer
Hi There,

Normally, one cannot libel a large group.  Defamation and libel laws normally apply to individuals.  Group defamation is sometimes allowed if the group is small enough so that it clearly applies to a few specific people.  But a religion with millions of worshipers is normally considered move of part of a public debate where such criticisms will be seen not as a person giving false information about someone, but as a public attack or criticism of a movement.

In other words, the First Amendment jurisprudence is based on the assumption that even wrong ideas should be protected.  If I say "Joe Smith is a thief".  People might think I know some fact about Joe Smith and act accordingly.  If my comment was false, I have defamed him.  If I say "all Jews are thieves."  A listener would not think I am acting from some special information about each and every person of the Jewish faith.  Rather they see it as political rhetoric with no basis as applied to specific people.

The Church of Scientology as brought a number of claims against people who have criticized the Church.  I don't think it has ever won a claim.

The First Amendment and the Courts hold that such speech should be met with Counter-speech.  In other words, the best way to kill wrong ideas is not to punish the speaker, but to let the public debate speak out and show why they are wrong.

I'll give a good example of this.  Back in college in the 1980's there were a bunch of right-wing wackos on my campus saying that the Holocaust never happened.  Of course this was wrong, but the speech was protected.  However, their comments inspired a long discussion of the Holocaust on campus.  People who were survivors or who had survivor parents talked about it, pictures were shown, etc.  Those holocaust deniers actually gave us an opportunity to remember the Holocaust and all of its horrors.  Such debate keeps the subject in our minds and reminds of why we need to continue to discuss it.

So whenever anyone makes an unsubstantiated claim, I find it is best to challenge them as to what the basis for the claim is.  With a few questions, you can usually show that they are idiots who don't know what they are talking about.

As for other world leaders like Arafat, they are not really covered by US law nor protected by the First Amendment.  They can say whatever they like, as long as it is legal in their home country.  It is unfortunate that free speech and dissent are not tolerated in most of the Arab world, or these lies could be more easily countered.

I hope this helps!
- Mike