By Kristen Waggoner
The threat of censorship looms large, and its implications are profound. In Finland, a Western democracy, a member of Parliament has endured five years of prosecution for tweeting a Bible verse. Päivi Räsänen was charged under the “War Crimes and Crimes Against Humanity” section of Finland’s criminal code for simply exercising her right to peacefully speak her faith-based beliefs. Alliance Defending Freedom International is backing her case before the Supreme Court of Finland.
Similarly, we are leading a legal challenge against Australian authorities who censored parental rights advocate “Billboard Chris” for his X post on the truth about gender.
We also led a successful emergency challenge to the censorship of the conservative conference NatCon in Brussels, the political heart of Europe, when authorities tried to shut it down this year.
And in the United Kingdom, we support the defense of citizens who face criminal proceedings for silent prayer outside abortion facilities.
Over in Ireland, officials stand ready to pass a draconian “hate speech” law with a five-year prison sentence for “hateful” material. And in countries where persecution is acute, some of our cases threaten the death penalty.
Many countries protect speech. Yet it’s far too common for Western countries outside the United States to enact some form of “hate speech” laws, which are vaguely worded, highly subjective, and arbitrarily enforced. An undefined term such as “hate” can be used to censor almost anything.
The U.S. is far from immune to this trend. “Hate speech” restrictions slip in the back door, through campus speech codes, so-called anti-discrimination requirements, and Big Tech and bank policies.
Abraham Lincoln warned that if America were to fall, it would be due to internal decay — ignorance, apathy, and a failure to steward our freedom. Today, our liberties are far more fragile than many realize. As a global legal organization, Alliance Defending Freedom spots these trends and uses litigation, legislation, and advocacy to protect every person’s right to live and speak the truth.
In the U.S., censorship festers on public campuses. We’ve represented thousands of students who were censored because their views didn’t align with their schools. Students such as Maggie have been silenced by campus officials because she dared to share her conservative views after progressive students shared theirs. We have represented hundreds of other students, including Ellie and Bernadette, who sought to share their pro-life beliefs only to be shut down by the government. And there’s Chike, whose case went all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court after his school stopped him from sharing the Gospel on campus.
The Biden-Harris administration’s latest attempt at censorship is among the worst. Their recent Title IX rule violates the First Amendment by forcing teachers, counselors, and students to embrace gender ideology, which imposes permanent harms. The rule compels school employees and students to use wrong pronouns under threat of punishment and undergirds policies that force the secret transition of children while deceiving parents. We represent teachers, counselors, parents, and children who have suffered great harm because of these policies.
Censorship has also come in the new form of corporate cancel culture. ADF represents groups such as Indigenous Advance Ministries and the National Committee for Religious Freedom that had their bank accounts closed while given shifting explanations and then silence from Bank of America and JPMorgan Chase. More and more groups, including ADF, face these threats regularly because we are religious. No one should lose their insurance or be unable to open a bank account because of their religious or political beliefs.
And I haven’t even mentioned the oppressive speech code that government officials in Colorado have imposed on our client, Jack Phillips, at Masterpiece Cakeshop. ADF has represented Jack for 12 years, defending his free speech right not to create messages that violate his conscience.
These cases are a snapshot of the rising threat of global censorship. While the penalties may differ in severity, efforts to silence peaceful expression blur the line between democracies and dictatorships. In an era of ever-mounting state overreach, free speech is our foremost defense against government abuse.
History confirms this. When the state starts to censor, there is no logical stopping point. The repression of speech does not end the root causes of societal tensions; it makes them worse. Frederick Douglass said, “Liberty is meaningless where the right to utter one’s thoughts and opinions has ceased to exist. That, of all rights, is the dread of tyrants. It is the right which they first of all strike down. They know its power.”
The promise of free speech anchors our other rights — to freely associate, petition the government, publish news, exercise our religion, and raise our families consistent with our values. These rights depend on the ability to speak freely.
The fight for free speech is a fight for the soul of America. It’s also the hope of the world, because we can’t champion abroad what we don’t cherish at home.
Kristen Waggoner is the CEO, president, and general counsel of Alliance Defending Freedom.
