Do We Want To See Beheading Videos Banned?

She said she came from another country where she had her own culture and own religion, but because of America's First Amendment, she could practice her religion here freely.

This was the sentiment expressed by a student in my First Amendment-related course, The Media: Freedom and Power.

For nearly the past two decades, the first oral presentation assignment has been for students to recite the First Amendment and briefly describe what it means to them. But for some reason her words particularly resonated amid the tremors of the Islamic group ISIS in the Middle East.

ISIS. This one name we had not heard of a year ago now conjures images of unmerciful, cruel brutality. Clad in black, they resemble Nazis rolling their way through Europe in World War II, except ISIS is rolling through Iraq delivering on its promise of death to those who don't renounce their religions and convert to theirs.

Seriously? Who does that in this day and age?

The notion of someone being threatened with death for not believing in the religion of another is something just so out of the realm of our reality in America. While we are not a perfect nation, the idea of being killed for one's religious beliefs is not one of our daily worries.

Now, on the 13th anniversary of the Sept. 11 terrorist attack on America, many Americans once again have the threat of a new group on our collective minds. It is brought more to the fore with the beheadings of American journalists Steve Sotloff and James Foley.

Granted, ISIS has been beheading non-Americans for some time as it campaigned through Iraq and Syria. It has also posted videos of mass executions of captured soldiers and civilians. As it happens so often, it is when the victims are like us in this case Americans and for those in journalism, journalists that the brutality takes on a chillier chill of ice that glazes the soul.

I had purposely avoided seeing the videos depicting the beheadings of Sotloff and Foley. When writing this piece, however, I decided to take a look to see just how horrible the act was. But I could not find it. YouTube pulled the actual depictions of the beheadings. I looked for some time and still did not find it.

I suppose I could have kept looking and I might have found it somewhere on the Internet, but it was somewhat of a relief not to have to brace myself for what was done to them.

Excerpt from:
Do We Want To See Beheading Videos Banned?