I will say that this is a good demonstration of the difference in attitudes about speech in the UK, as opposed to the US attitude.

In the U.S., government and the courts can't stop people from saying what they want to say. And they can't force people to say what they don't want to say. I don't think the plaintiff would win a similar lawsuit in the U.S.

In the British Isles, such coercion is apparently appropriate.

There is value in both approaches. Is one of them right and the other wrong? No, they're just different.

As for me, I prefer the U.S. philosophy about speech. Apparently, that makes me a horrible person in the eyes of some of those in the British Isles, to the point of them feel justified to attack my religious beliefs - beliefs that I did not express at all in this thread.

I think that many of you have a very perverted concept of what's fair and what's not.

I think this is a very good illustration of what I call "absolutism" - people who live by ideology instead of critical thought, people who are totally unable to question their own thinking because they are so thoroughly convinced of their righteousness. In the U.S., such people usually espouse conservative causes. In the British Isles, many of these absolutists profess a liberal ideology. Whether liberal or conservative, these absolutists are "true believers," totally unable to accept any thoughts other than their own.

-Joe Offer-