Denver Archbishop Charles J. Chaput says a recent U.S. Supreme Court
decision on video game violence is “wrong,” and will contribute to
“poisoning our future.”
In a July 1 column for First Things,
Archbishop Chaput wrote that the court's June 27 ruling “extends and
elevates the individual’s right to free expression – or in this case, a
corporation’s right to make a healthy profit - at the expense of family
sovereignty, the natural rights of parents and the intent of the
Constitution’s authors.”
The decision in the case of “Brown vs.
EMA” struck down a California law that banned minors from buying or
renting violent video games.
Justice Antonin Scalia, writing for
the majority, said violent video games deserve First Amendment
protection just like books, plays and movies.
He wrote that video games
should not be included in categories of expression that are excluded
from First Amendment protection – namely, obscenity, incitement and
fighting words.
But Archbishop Chaput said the ruling overlooked
the government's duty to protect human dignity and the common good. “A
law which respects mothers and fathers trying to make good choices for
their family does just that,” he wrote.
Archbishop Chaput
clarified that he does not believe video games are “bad.” But to allow
minors access to violent video games without parental consent, he said,
violates natural law and parents' rights.
Justices Ginsburg,
Kagan, Kennedy and Sotamayor joined Scalia in finding California's law
unconstitutional. Justice Alito and Chief Justice Roberts supported the
majority opinion, but argued in a differing opinion that violent video
games may cause significant social problems because they have a
different impact on youth than radio, television or literature.
Archbishop
Chaput acknowledged that the court's affirmation of what lawmakers can
and cannot ban is important, in light of some religious teaching being
labeled hate speech because of the recent push for gay “marriage.”
But
he said the court acted prematurely in its decision to strike down the
law, and made “a serious mistake in too quickly lumping violent video
games under the same protections given Grimm's Fairy Tales or network
TV.”
The archbishop argued that the California law protected
parental authority and minors because it “did not preclude parents from
buying or renting violent video games for their minor children – if they
chose to do so as parents.”
He called attention to Justice
Clarence Thomas' minority opinion, which held that the Constitution's
intended definition of free speech does not include a right of minors to
access speech without parental or guardian consent.
Justice Thomas
indicated in his dissent that the Founding Fathers supported parents'
complete authority to direct the development of their minor children.
“Video
games can simulate, and potentially stimulate, violence in a far more
intensely immersive way than traditional media,” Archbishop Chaput
noted, citing the opinion of a former army officer and author who once
called violent video games “murder simulators.”
The Archbishop of
Denver said that Colorado's 1999 Columbine High School shooting is
“indirect but brutally real proof” of his point.
He was Archbishop of
Denver when the shootings occurred, and said he still remembers visiting
with families of victims and “trying to make sense of the violence to
the wider community.”
Archbishop Chaput addressed a special
session of the U.S. Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and
Transportation two weeks after the 1999 shootings, saying the violence
found in video games has a direct impact on youth and is among the roots
of real-life violence.
“Common sense tells us that the violence
of our music, our video games, our films, and our television has to go
somewhere,” he said at the 1999 session.
“It goes straight into the
hearts of our children to bear fruit in ways we can't imagine – until
something like (the Columbine shootings) happens.”