Rev and Dylan, two Canadian atheists, are embarking on a speaking tour of American Bible Colleges, sponsored by the fictional American Atheist Consortium. There is a misunderstanding at the border, and the Consortium’s representative (Phil) and legal counsel (Mr. Lyon) must appear to negotiate their entry into the States with the border Chief and legal counsel (Mr. Grimm).

As soon as they exited the building, the team from BuffaloTV rushed up.

“A word please?” the reporter said breathlessly to Dylan and pointed her mic at him.

“Perspicuity,” he replied, and giggled.

“You are Dylan O’Toole and Chris Reveille? Arrested for blasphemy in Canada? For putting graffiti—”

“It wasn’t exactly graffiti,” Rev interrupted. “We added a quotation from The Bible to a billboard.”

“And what quotation was that?”

“‘Blessed are they that taketh and dasheth thy little ones against the stone.’ Psalms 137:9.”

“Isn’t that a little inflammatory?”

“It was—appropriate,” Rev said ambiguously.

“It was a Right-to-Life billboard,” Dylan explained. “If it had been one of those sexual assault billboards, we would’ve added the bit from Deuteronomy: ‘As for the women…ye may take them as plunder for yourselves.’ It’s my favourite.”

“You’re in favour of rape?”

Phil took a step forward.

“What? No, of course not!” Dylan said. “It’s my favourite for showing that there’s a lot more in The Bible than people think there is. Because they haven’t actually read it.”

Phil took a step backward.

“So you’re saying most people are wrong? About what’s in The Bible?”

“Yeah,” Rev interjected. “I’d say most people are wrong. That’s actually my whole philosophy of life right there in a nutshell.” Dylan poked her.

“What we’re saying is you can’t just pick and choose.”

“You don’t think people should choose what to believe?”

“No! Yes! People should most definitely choose what to believe. I’m saying you can’t just choose the bits from The Bible you agree with and ignore the rest. Well, you can, I suppose, but then any argument that begins with ‘The Bible says’ or maybe even ‘God says’ will be useless. I mean, you could say ‘The Bible says don’t kill’ but then I could say ‘The Bible says do kill.’ Which it does. In Joshua, for example. See? It’s a stalemate. Better we should just figure out whether it’s okay to kill, yeah? ‘The Bible says’ part is irrelevant. Completely unnecessary.”

At this point, the Chief Officer happened to step outside to see Mr. Grim to his car. The reporter rushed from Rev and Dylan to him.

“Chief, how will you explain to your children tonight that you’re letting a couple convicted criminals into our country to roam the streets at night?”

The Chief rolled his eyes and turned to go back inside without a comment, but at a nudge from Mr. Grim, changed his mind.

“My children are in their thirties,” he said, “so they don’t need me to explain anything to them, let alone the fact that we have freedom of speech here, as well as freedom of religion, freedom of association, and freedom of movement. Ms. Reveille and Mr. O’Toole will, however, be escorted as they engage in their speaking tour.”

“And why is that?”

“Because some states have blasphemy laws—”

“Wouldn’t that contradict freedom of speech?”

“Yes, it would,” Mr. Lyon stepped in eagerly. “We maintain that those states with blasphemy laws are in direct violation of the Constitution of the United States of America—”

“Now wait just a minute,” Mr. Grim stepped in as well, “you know very well that those freedoms are not absolute. We have what we call ‘fighting words’,” he explained to the reporter. “Speech intended to incite others is illegal. And it may very well be that blasphemous statements fall into that category.”

“Oh please,” Mr. Lyon scoffed, “you’re glossing over what, exactly, fighting words are presumed to incite: hatred and violence. If so-called blasphemy is intended to incite, say, the pursuit of truth, the examination of one’s faith—”

“No that’s not quite right, I’m afraid,” Mr. Grim scolded. “Fighting words are defined as those which ‘by their very utterance inflict injury or tend to incite an immediate breach of the peace.’ Blasphemous statements are very likely to incite an immediate breach of the peace.”

“So might the claim that Santa Claus doesn’t exist, if uttered at a mall in December in the presence of crowds of children waiting to see said Santa Claus. I find it interesting,” Mr. Lyon continued, turning back to the reporter, “that the very first case of fighting words, Chaplinsky vs. the State of New Hampshire, 1941, was against a person of religion. Walter Chaplinsky was a Jehovah’s Witness.”

And it was only with the greatest of efforts that Mr. Grim refrained from saying ‘Yeah, well, your mother wears army boots!’