Quick, can you name the five specific freedoms guaranteed by the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution?
I had no problem with speech, press, religion and assembly, but I admit to missing petition. Then again, it’s been awhile since I asked my representative to help me with my grievances by filing a petition with the House Clerk.
I’m not alone. This year’s survey by the First Amendment Center finds only one percent of Americans can identify petitioning the government as one of the five freedoms guaranteed in the First Amendment.
We do much better on speech. Two out of three Americans know that is a basic right, while one in three were able to identify freedom of religion. Fourteen percent could name the freedom of the press and seven percent knew the right of assembly.
Unfortunately, 29 percent of the 1,006 adults questioned for the survey could not name any of the freedoms in the First Amendment. Not one. The good news about that troubling number is that it’s down from 2000 when 37 percent failed to name any of the five freedoms.
First Amendment Center vice president and executive director Gene Policinski says, however, it’s not enough to just list the freedoms. “It’s even more important to know how we can use them, and how to defend them if someone means to restrict or take away those basic rights,” Policinski wrote in his weekly column.
The freedoms are so ingrained in our culture that we take them for granted.
We attend the church of our choice, free from a forcibly established state religion. Our criticism of the government is protected, even if it’s contemptuous. The press goes about its business without fear of being locked up. We can peacefully assemble and associate with whom we choose.
But sometimes it gets complicated; usually when an individual believes his or her right to exercise one of those freedoms is obstructed. The most recent high profile case involved Hobby Lobby’s argument against paying for certain kinds of birth control because that violated the owners’ religious beliefs.
But we work out these issues. I love that we use the word “exercise” when discussing these rights, as though the muscles of democracy have to be worked vigorously so they don’t atrophy.
One of the many benefits of being an American is that you don’t have to know the basic rights and freedoms to enjoy them. It’s a luxury of citizenship. However, it would be a mistake to assume they will always be there for us.
It’s not as though any one of the big five will be abruptly removed, but freedoms are subject to erosion. James Madison said, “There are more instances of the abridgement of the freedom of the people by gradual and silent encroachments of those in power than by violent and sudden usurpations.”
If one day the 29 percent that doesn’t know any of the freedoms becomes 50 or 60 percent, it’s going to be easier for those freedoms to be diluted.