Media And Religion

In liberal democratic societies, there is a tendency to consider the right to freedom of expression as being of more importance than the right to freedom of religion. This is apparent through several cases in which, despite their actions causing deep offense to numerous religious individuals, the media’s freedom of expression has been defended and protected. In liberal democratic societies, one should seek to fairly balance the competition between the freedom of expression and freedom of religion. To accomplish this, I believe it is necessary to impose certain restrictions on the media’s freedom. Nevertheless, one must not attempt to completely restrict the right to express views regarding religion, as this would consequently inhibit our …show more content…
The media’s usage of their freedom of expression often abuses that right. For example, South Park’s episode in which the virgin Mary was displayed in an offensive and degrading way was met with many complaints, however they were not upheld because the broadcasting authority determined they show was simply exercising their right to freedom of expression. The degradation of Mary in this particular episode of South Park could be argued to be offensive for the sake of being offensive. Their depiction of Mary does not make a meaningful contribution to public debate, nor does it attempt to critique certain views put forward by religion which are necessary to debate. The same may be said for the Charlie Hebdo publications, or the cartoons published by a Danish newspaper which demonised the Prophet Muhammed. These example relate to an argument put forward by David Unterhalter’s, that with the right to freedom of speech lies the freedom to offend others. This idea needs to be disputed. Freedom of expression helps to create healthy debate and discussion among liberal democratic societies, and to use this power to instead purposefully offend people is an abuse of this right. As argued by Goolam, with the right to freedom of expression comes the responsibility not to use that freedom to harm people. By having certain restrictions to freedom of expression, we can more fairly balance the competition between freedom of expression and freedom of religion. It is clear that the proper respect and reverence of religious ideas are important to many religious people. To some, the disrespect and offensive they feel may lead them to extremist actions. This is a deadly consequence of unrestricted freedom of expression. Evidently, action must be taken to stop the media from abusing their freedom of