Freedom from being offended

Freedom from being offended is not generally recognized as a legal right. Unfortunately, many people tend to take it as such, or at least to use arguments which amount to a statement that freedom from being offended trumps (is more important than) freedom of speech. In practice, this works against freedom of speech, because anyone can claim to be "offended" (on behalf of their god, religion, or other authority) by anything they don't want you to say; invoking the "right" of "freedom from being offended" would thereby give them the right to arbitrarily suppress the free speech of others.

Freedom of speech grants the offended party the right to state the fact of their offended-ness, and to attempt to convice the other party to change what they are saying; only in the case of hate speech, i.e. actual or implied threat of physical harm, is any right generally given to legally suppress or prevent the speech of the offender (though it is questionable whether even this is a good idea).

Links

 * 2008-01-29 When Human Rights Go Very Very Wrong: an open-minded Christian argues that the Canadian Human Rights Commission has become a kangaroo court in the name of protecting freedom from being offended.
 * 2006-08-20 The Town Square Test: references the town square test