Politically Correct Police

            The topic of discussion for this Constitution Monday is the freedom to speak and to publish personal thoughts. The First Amendment to the United States Constitution guarantees that Americans have freedom to speak and freedom of press. In the current politically-correct world, there are people who believe that certain things should not be said and try to enforce their belief by police action.

            C. Douglas Golden reports that a 75-year-old woman in England wrote something on her blog that brought attention from Suffolk Police. It seems that Margaret Nelson, a former teacher and journalist, was under the impression that gender is biological. She wrote on her blog that “gender is fashionable nonsense.”

            Nelson’s blog post discussed her intention to donate her body to science upon her death. She noted that the aspiring scientists would see her body as a female body no matter how she identified her gender. “So no, in life or in death, trans women are not women, no matter how many times you say it’s so…. It’s simply impossible to change your sex.”    

   

            It seems that the police – the actual police and not the thought police like in 1984 – did not like what Nelson wrote. She received a telephone call from a policewoman with a warning. Nelson was told that her words “could have upset or offended transgender people.” The policewoman asked Nelson to remove the offending posts and tweets and to stop writing that kind of stuff.

            The internet is good for a lot of things, and it came to Nelson’s rescue. When the news got out to her supporters, they raised an outcry that reached the ears of the police. They issued a public apology and a personal apology.

“We accept we made a misjudgment in following up a complaint regarding the blog,” a statement read, according to the Ipswich Star.

“As a result of this we will be reviewing our procedures dealing with such matters. We are sorry for any distress we may have caused in the way this issue was dealt with, and have been in contact with the woman who wrote the blog to apologize.”

            The above incident happened in England, and England seems to be further down the slippery slope than the United States. However, American freedom to speak and publish is under constant threat from the same kind of forces, and this same type of error could happen here. The only way to prevent such a thing happening in the United States is for Americans to realize that it could happen here and to stay alert to defend against it.