Megyn Kelly swam against the current of other Fox News hosts by defending the "Draw Muhammad" cartoon contest hosted by the American Freedom Defense Initiative and told a progressive talk show host that the organization was well within its constitutional right of free speech.
Kelly duked it out with Richard Fowler, telling him he was "fundamentally confused and wrong" about the event and said its primary purpose was the exercise of free speech,
reported Mediaite.
Elton Simpson and Nadir Soofi were shot and killed by Texas law enforcement officers in Garland after the two men opened fire outside of the AFDI event as it wrapped up Sunday, drawing comparisons to the Charlie Hebdo attack in France,
reported NBC News.
While Fox News hosts Bill O'Reilly and Greta Van Susteren criticized the cartoon event as "putting cops as risk" and "insulting the entire Muslim world," Kelly pushed back.
"Even if you hate her message, she was promoting free speech," Kelly told Fowler,
according to Real Clear Politics. "And as Rich Lowry (of the National Review) put it in a column today, 'criticism of Islam is at the vanguard of the fight for free speech since it is susceptible to attack and intimidation by jihadis that call for self-censorship in the name of being politically correct.'"
Kelly pointed to a U.S. Supreme Court decision in support of Westboro Baptist Church, which has in the past picketed the funeral services of military soldiers, as an example of the law supporting free speech efforts.
"The decision issued in 2011, 8-1, a nearly unanimous Supreme Court, liberals and conservatives joining together, saying that notwithstanding the fact that the Westboro Baptist Church, as hateful as they come, hurtful, and speech which did not contribute hardly at all to the public discourse," Kelly told Fowler. "Negligible value. Nonetheless, free speech still supported allowing them to do it."
Fowler appeared to concede the point to Kelly point near the end of the conversation, saying that while the free speech right is there, he questioned the wisdom of the event.
"Exactly, it doesn't mean you should do it," Fowler told Kelly. "The first amendment does give us the right to free speech, it doesn't mean you should go out and do it. It doesn't mean you should go out there and do stupid things as they did."
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