Editor’s note: This commentary is by John Klar, a Vermont grass-fed beef farmer, and an attorney and pastor who lives in Westfield.
[T]here is no free speech right to kneel in protest at ball games. There just isn’t. The freedom to burn a flag or resist an anthem is clear — but not while you are in the paid employment of another. What if any player who wished could raise the Nazi flag during the anthem, or maybe a devout Christian who felt passionately about abortion kneeled in protest? The fans would stay, or maybe not — kind of like if customers were offered a range of private, passionate political opinions while they tried to order food at a restaurant. (Wasn’t a Vermont man recently fired from a pizza shop because he attended an alt-right event in another state?)
By raising the comparison of a BLM protester to an abortion rights or Nazi protester, I am not equating these ideologies — I am observing merely that the First Amendment equates them in its protections. I earnestly pray that our nation employs effective means to reduce the number of blacks killed by police officers. I also oppose abortion, but a performance of the national anthem is not the appropriate forum for anti-abortion protests either. And while the football or other leagues have the right to embrace a side on these and other issues, it would be a mistake for them to do so. Whether or not it is an appropriate forum, there is clearly no legal right to free speech for players during the anthem.
Public radio did a whole hour on the subject this week and the issue of reasonable restrictions on free speech was never mentioned. What was discussed, with histrionic indignation, was the fact that some players have been permitted to play ball after convictions for serious crimes, while Colin Kaepernick is allegedly being blackballed for expressing a political view. But it has long been law in America that an employer is liable for his employee’s negligent actions but is immune from liability for unforeseeable criminal actions committed by those same employees. To ban someone from employment for a criminal conviction would be a prejudice to be condemned — if they have paid the price, convicts should be entitled to make a living and contribute to society. But if an employer keeps an offensive loudmouth on staff, they can lose business, or even be sued, for that very fact. So the contrast between an off-work criminal conviction and an at-work protest cannot logically be compared without weighing the differences in context as well as content. I can burn a flag at a licensed protest; I have no free speech right to burn one while I’m working in a grocery store.
There is no debate here: Whatever the legitimacy of Colin Kaepernick’s views, he had no “right” to air them on someone else’s dime. Choose: Are you an employed athlete or a political protester? You do not possess a right to compel your employer to hire both. The First Amendment has no bearing here, unless it is to reflect on how openly it is being manipulated and abused, particularly by the left, which increasingly seeks to draw a dividing line between what it calls “peaceful” protests and the violent ideologies of those it opposes. The First Amendment does not draw this line, and antifa has demonstrated that its so-called peaceful ideas can manifest themselves in violence which is equal to Nazi violence. (It is bizarre to seek to stop the violent ideas of Nazism or racism with physical violence, and it will not succeed.)
I am not taking issue with the political views expressed; I am discussing the problem of opening every forum to every political view, or to only a preselected spectrum of views. Soon pre-game expression will ensure every game becomes a political brawl.
Perhaps in the near future, players who feel strongly (for or against) abortion or capital punishment will kneel, or they will kneel to support a group of foreign refugees, or women’s rights, or animal cruelty reforms. The list of potential gripes — however passionately felt, or justified — is unlimited. Shall sporting events now become mirrors of the Occupy Wall Street movement, with each team member wearing a slogan or waving a flag publicizing their cause du jour?
Whole teams are joining this fray, refusing to join in our national anthem. But instead of enjoying free speech they are abusing it by insisting on a right they don’t have. They are abusing the public, abusing the league, abusing the game. The game will suffer, and so will their cause. If there’s one way to alienate someone from your position, it is to rudely get in their face and insult them. Fans want to watch a game, maybe even patriotically. They leave political turmoil at home on purpose. Getting in people’s faces when they are paying money to escape and relax is not heroism, it is a rebellion against the employer who pays a gargantuan salary for people to do their job..
