Seven Words You Can Say on Television

Originally posted at www.fccleb.org on July 16, 2010

Older readers and stand-up comedy fans may remember George Carlin’s “Seven Words You Can’t Say on Television” routine. The days when you could excite comment by uttering a profanity on television are long behind us. And, thanks to a court ruling, so too are the days when you could break the law (http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/14/business/media/14indecent.html?_r=1&ref=television).
According to a Federal Appeals Court in New York, the FCC’s current ban on the use of fleeting obscenities is unconstitutional because it supposedly has a chilling effect. The upshot: it’s okay for Cher, Bono, and other stars who have cursed during live broadcasts to do so in the future. It doesn’t matter that some viewers might be offended or that children might be watching. The First Amendment, we are told, gives them the right to say whatever they darned well please.

I’m not an expert in constitutional law nor am I a historian, but I have read enough American history to feel confident stating that the authors of the Bill of Rights did not have in mind the right of people to use cuss words in public, especially if the only reason to do so was to raise a profile or turn a buck. Frankly, it’s hard to imagine James Madison having much sympathy for the Fox network and its fears that mild regulation of obscenity might possibly, somehow, nobody-can-really-say-how-much, impact its earnings.

While I wish it were otherwise, grumpiness on my part won’t change this ruling. As a parent and a pastor I just have to buckle down and deal with yet another development that coarsens our society and makes it just that much more difficulty to raise my child in an ever more obscene world.

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