By Jay Michaelson:
“Ultimately, freedom of speech is about ascertaining the truth,” Sessions, an Alabama Republican, told Horowitz’s audience on Nov. 14, 2014. “And if you don’t believe there’s a truth, you don’t believe in truth, if you’re an utter secularist, then how do we operate this government? How can we form a democracy of the kind I think you and I believe in… I do believe that we are a nation that, without God, there is no truth, and it’s all about power, ideology, advancement, agenda, not doing the public service.”
The comments have not been previously reported, nor have any of Sessions’s colleagues asked about them at his confirmation hearings.
While plenty of elected officials may hold similar beliefs, Sessions is a nominee for attorney general, the chief law enforcement officer in the country. His comments raise questions as to which set of “truths,” religious or secular, would motivate his Justice Department’s decisions on which laws to prosecute, which liberties to protect, and which interpretations of legal and constitutional texts to adopt.
“It goes against the values our country was founded on to intertwine religion and government in the way that Sessions described,” Michael Keegan, president of the liberal advocacy group People for the American Way, told The Daily Beast. “The equality of every American, regardless of his or her religious beliefs or nonbelief, is one of the core principles of our democracy. If Jeff Sessions can’t understand that, he’s unfit to serve as attorney general.”
Indeed, to describe freedom of speech as being about “ascertaining the truth” flies in the face of 200 years of Supreme Court precedent, which protects artistic expression, commercial speech, and free expression of all types, regardless of whether they are intended to ascertain the truth.
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