[From "Mea Culpa On Free Speech"]

I used to be a free speech absolutist, with qualifications of course – which begs the question doesn’t it? Qualifications like you cannot make a death threat[…]For virtually all other speech I believed there should be freedom for people to speak their conscience

My position on free speech was formed by a large dose of having grown up in secular Australia, a peaceful, stable and prosperous society
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I took great delight in seeing first the Anabaptists[…]make the early case for freedom of conscience and expression. Especially considering this idea appeared to have done much good in the Western world
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But then I sought to make this case on Vox Popoli[…]It was there that I heard the first truly persuasive argument against free speech: the case of Lady Chatterley’s Lover
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Freedom of expression means freedom of expression, and this entails allowing things to be freely expressed that many Christians, and people of other faiths and even no faith, find reprehensive. Chatterly’s Lover is essentially porn in literary form
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This case helped progressives do what they love doing best: transgressing boundaries[…]You could argue that this is the definitional pillar of progressivism
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There are always blasphemy laws in any culture, even a libertine culture, where it is blasphemy to say, “That is immoral”, or “Maybe you should have self-control,” or, “Do you really need another cookie?”. We Christians and conservatives in the West fell into the trap of believing that neutrality could exist in a nation
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So here is my mea culpa on free speech, I was wrong to ever defend it