In Monday's feedback, Fabio Albertin criticized The Spectrum for printing an opinion piece that he considered "biased and discriminating religious propaganda." I am glad that Albertin brought up the topic of discrimination, because the sort of censorship that he supports seems discriminatory on the grounds of both freedom of speech and freedom of religion.
A student publication at a state school cannot and should not practice content-based viewpoint discrimination. Aside from questionable legal grounds, I would hope that a free-thinking student body would not tolerate the censorship of an opinion piece simply because it expressed a personal religious viewpoint. I am sure that the Spectrum would gladly print opposing viewpoints from other religious perspectives, as evidenced by its willingness to print Albertin's response.
A consequence of our First Amendment freedoms is that, at times, we will be exposed to ideas that we do not necessarily agree with. We should not chip away at First Amendment liberties by seeking to suppress viewpoints we do not like. I encourage Albertin to reconsider his attitude toward religious freedom. Simply because a religion makes exclusive claims does not make it worthy of suppression. Many world religions make exclusive claims concerning metaphysical truths.
If Albertin believes that only religions that make no claims about absolute truth are entitled to a voice in the public sphere, he has an unacceptably limited notion of religious freedom that comes dangerously close to religious bigotry.
