People like Rocker are funny in a way. Not that I find his comments in Sports Illustrated bashing gays, foreigners and blacks the least bit humorous. But whenever an idiot like Rocker says things like that, it forces otherwise sensible people to defend his rights to say them.
Major League Baseball suspended Rocker and ordered him to see a shrink to seek a cure for his "problem." Of course the main problem baseball was attempting to cure was its PR problem. Being an ignorant redneck might be offensive but it's not something psychological that can be fixed with treatment. Surely, baseball commissioner Bud Selig is not so ignorant himself not to know that.
While among people whose parents aren't also cousins, Rocker's views raise near unanimous objection, there is some debate over whether baseball was in its right to suspend Rocker for sharing his views publicly.
After all, the First Amendment specifically protects dissenting, even disgusting, voices from government punishment.
It is one of the unfortunate fallouts of freedom that John Rocker can dislike gays, foreigners, New Yorkers and whomever else he wants, say it publicly and the government can't do anything about it.
But Major League Baseball can. Baseball is not the government. Baseball is not trying to hush dissenting voices to the powers in office. Baseball is a business that has the perfect right to discipline any employee who embarrasses the company. Suspending John Rocker from the game is not denying his constitutional right to put his foot into his mouth.
I work at for a television station. While my celebrity does not nearly compare to that of professional baseball players, if I were quoted in the local newspaper saying the same things John Rocker said, I'd be fired that day. Gone. I am one of the faces of my station. It's bad for the station's business if nobody will watch me on the news because they hate my guts and it states in my contract that I can be terminated for conduct that publicly embarrasses the station.
So don't make John Rocker a poster boy for the First Amendment. Whether Major League Baseball's punishment for Rocker is fitting or not, it is not unconstitutional.
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