Neil Gaiman is the author of several lines of fantasy graphic novels. His first, Sandman, made a historic debut as an intelligent and thought-provoking graphic series. I enjoyed reading it myself in the 1980s and 1990s.

As an evangelical Christian, I feel like I exist in two worlds. In the first world, the one in which I was born as flesh and blood, there is a commitment, in my country at least, to free speech principles – at least among a good cross-section of the population. But in the other world, the spiritual world where my brothers and sisters in Christ and I join in heavenly bond, there is a natural – and sometimes adamant – recoil against certain perversions like the glorification of incest, child rape, and other sexual no-nos. I understand both worlds quite well.

Free speech, however, rarely has anything to do with what happens in the real (flesh and blood) world. Just because two characters in a novel choose to have sexual relations doesn’t have any bearing on whether or not such a thing actually takes place in the real world. If one of the characters is a 40-year-old man and the other is a 16-year-old girl going on 25 (or the other way around), the reader (and even those offended non-readers who heard about it on the nightly news) must realize that this is a work of imagination, bearing little semblance to reality.

On the other hand, art is often a depiction of real life so perhaps the author is simply describing an event that he knows is a real event and that the two people represent what he knows is all-too real. Nevertheless, the issue is often focused on the morality of the incident – whether fictional or real.

Neil Gaiman’s Defense Of The Indefensible

I tip my hat to author Neil Gaiman for his recent stand for free speech and weaving into his credo the often ambiguous and multi-faceted gray areas dealing with this issue. He really got icky with it.

Many of my Christian friends do not understand the line, “If you accept — and I do — that freedom of speech is important, then you are going to have to defend the indefensible.” Yet, that is my own position as well.

In full, here’s a paragraph from Neil Gaiman’s brilliant defense of free speech:

The Law is a blunt instrument. It’s not a scalpel. It’s a club. If there is something you consider indefensible, and there is something you consider defensible, and the same laws can take them both out, you are going to find yourself defending the indefensible.

Many Christians do not understand this. They believe that to defend the indefensible is to oppose God and undermine his kingdom. They will say they believe in freedom then in the very next sentence say that so-and-so should not be allowed to … (adopt children, get married, drink on Sunday, or you can fill in the blank). I take issue with these sentiments because they are not pro-freedom and if you are going to utter them then you should be aware that you do not believe in freedom and just be honest about it.

I love the law. To me, the law represents an iron fist. It should not – though it often does – discriminate between acts of intentional criminality and well-meaning acts of good intention. If it breaks a law then it should be punishable under the law, though mitigating circumstances may mean limiting a punishment to the lower end of the prescribed discipline for the offense. Of course, this digression is meant to illustrate that the issue of the Law is one not to be taken lightly and this in no way touches on what should be considered lawful in terms of human action.

The Absolute Of Non-Absolutes

Freedom of speech is not an absolute. You can’t yell fire in a crowded theater and you can’t falsely accuse others of a crime (in most cases) knowing full well that your accusation is false. Nevertheless, with few exceptions, freedom of speech is about as close to being an absolute as we have in the U.S.

I for one do not believe that immoral art causes people to commit acts of immorality, cruelty, or go on disorderly binges of one kind or another. Human beings are depraved creatures. All it takes for many of us to slither through a gutter of moral bilge is to wake up and breathe. Even the good among us are not entirely good. We do not need the Marquis de Sade to teach us imaginative ways to pleasure ourselves. The same imaginations that create art of that nature are capable of living lives much worse.

Free speech is that thing that allows moral people to stand up and shout that a certain act or piece of literature is immoral. Without that, we could very well live in a society that is so permissive on one hand that it quells the good from shedding light on the bad. That would not be free speech and I would not want to live in such a society.

If free speech is to continue there must be a commitment to it from all quarters. We must be, as Neil Gaiman says, willing to defend the indefensible. But we must also be willing to speak out against the inconceivable. This thing we call free speech is a double-edge sword. It cuts going in and it cuts coming out. But when you need it to defend yourself you’ll be darned glad you have it.