A Creator or human reason. Take your pick.
Unfettered free speech allows me to say certain people are inferior, but if there is no accepted morality can any body really say I'm wrong?
You make your argument, I reply with logic. We let the good people of America decide which one of us is making sense. Marketplace of ideas and all that.
My question really is did our founding fathers in their thinking, really intend our 1st amendment to become the amorally twisted document that the courts say its is today?
We can only deal with what's in the Constitution. The FF were smart enough to realize that they could not predict how the world would change, so they left the Constitution deliberately general.
There is no test, nor should there be, as to whether speech is moral. A neo-Nazi, a pornographer and the Pope all have the same right to put forward an idea. The 1st Amendment does not judge whether that idea is a good one, that's up to the people.
Was is to be viewed as stripped from all moral and religious boundaries, allowing the filthy communications and pornography that exists today?
In a word, yes.
I am not arguing with you, I am simply asking questions. Logic itself is the harrying eagle that can keep arguers honest but logic has no where in and of itself to build its nest!
To deny morality or a notion of "what is good" as a motive force behind our constituion is to accept another notion of "what is good"!
I have often wondered if it is not time to have a third constitutional convention so that the current conflicts in our society can get a proper airing out. The electorate is clearly polarized between notions of 18th century morality as perceived as enshrined in our constitution as opposed to those who feel that our constitution should be stripped of such notions and interpretations to allow a more flexible approach to the vaguaries of the 21st century.
Then there are the islamist barbarians knocking at our door who feel they are stronger in that they see us as in moral confusion. They know that if moral clarity is restored to our nation, that they have no chance in ultimately defeating us. It would be ironic if we discovered that in order to defeat the rising Islamic hordes, we would have to become a little more like them...at least in terms of moral clarity!