Book Review 4 || Susan Jacoby - Freethinkers: A History of American Secularism

In Freethinkers, Susan Jacoby argues strongly for a recognition of the long secular tradition in American politics and presents a call to action for freethinkers of all stripes to reclaim the public square dominated by right-wing religious fundamentalists.1 Although the book was written in 2003, and therefore was aimed at then-President George Bush's right-wing religious presidency, many of the topics and ideas discussed in the book remain equally relevant today. Certainly, demographic shifts – primarily the phenomenon that researcher Robert Jones called the “death of white Christian America” – have helped to limit the power of the religious right. However, given the influence that they have had in within the Trump administration, it would be foolish to merely consign them to the dustbin of history. That would be a mistake often made by fellow secularists, as Jacoby points out throughout the book.

The book's primary focus is on secularism and religion, however, in discussing these topics, it often does stray into discussions of censorship. So, although this is not the main purpose of the book, it will be the core of the discussion of the book to follow, since, after all, discussion of censorship is the purpose of this blog.

Religious Censorship in Freethinkers

If Freethinkers tells us anything about censorship it is that censorship efforts have long been the purview of religious leaders, even before the merger of fundamentalist religion and the right-wing in the 1970s and 1980s. In contemporary discussions of free speech, I rarely see mention of the long, long history of religious censorship in America. Generally, commentators will bring up the Inquisition or the index librorum prohibitorum, but I have not seen as much hand-wringing over the Chicago Board of Censors' decision that banned Roberto Rosselini's Anatomy of a Murder.2 This myopia makes it seem like somehow religious censorship is something which happens elsewhere or is a relic of the past, rather than a present, continuous, and completely American threat to the First Amendment.

The examples of religious censorship in the book abound, and each probably deserves a post of their own at some point. Of course, probably the most well-known formal censorship came from the Comstock Law, passed in 1873.3 The law itself was the brainchild of Anthony Comstock, who had gained some influence by heading the Young Men's Christian Association's Society for the Suppression of Vice. He parlayed his experience passing a censoring obscenity law in New York to convince Congress to pass one nationwide – with Comstock appointed to a position as a special postal agent. In this capacity, Comstock was able to directly impose his puritanical religious views on books, magazines, pamphlets, speeches, and anything else which the American public might otherwise enjoy. Comstock most notably targeted publications that discussed sex, especially those regarding birth control. Those silences under his laws included: Emma Goldman, the well-known revolutionary; Margaret Sanger, the birth control advocate; Ezra H. Heywood, a socialist and advocate of “free love”4, Walt Whitman, whose humanist poetry was often the target of censorship, and many other freethinkers, womens' rights advocates, socialists, and artists. Once against, it was the strongest advocates for social justice who most strongly supported free speech.

Their fight against censorship was a conscious and intentional strategy. In one incident in 1929, Marget Sanger was banned from speaking an event by Boston's Catholic mayor. In response, she wore tape over her mouth as her prepared statement was read by Arthur Schlesinger, Sr. The American Civil Liberties Union, which by that time was very concerned about free speech, prepared a pamphlet called “Censorship in Boston” denouncing the censorship there.5 According to Jacoby, the effect of such protests was to make censoring officials look foolish.

Of course, even at a time when government censorship was widespread and accepted, informal censorship was still incredibly common. The Women's Christian Temperance Union (WCTU), for instance provided ministers with publications to condemn, or were given the pulpit to condemn them themselves.6 In 1934, the Catholic Church's Legion of Decency led a boycott of theaters in Philadelphia for showing films they considered obscene. Worried about their bottom line, the movie industry agreed to censor films along Catholic lines, creating the Production Code Administration.7 The code banned nudity, vulgar language, and anything to do with sex, particularly outside of marriage. According to Jacoby, other industries, like book and magazine publishers were less susceptible to informal censorship efforts because they were more decentralized. Unable to censor such materials informally, religious leaders turned to more formal censorship, for instance the banning of a 1938 Life magazine in several large cities. The susceptibility of centralized industries to censorship campaigns remains deeply relevant today as the Trump administration sets its sights on censoring centralized social media sites, despite wrapping itself in pro-free speech language.

Overall, the book does a compelling job of arguing its central thesis that America has always had a secular political tradition. Jacoby identifies that tradition from debates around the Constitution all the way through to the early aughts. For our purpose here, the book also catalogues a lot of interesting history of censorship, highlighting the religious roots of censorship, and showing how those most on the side of social justice were often at the forefront of opposing censorship.8