02 Apr Free speech

English novelist Philip Pullman’s latest book, The Good Man Jesus and the Scoundrel Christ, has provoked threats of a Christian fatwa against him. At a public forum this week, Pullman responded to an audience member who complained that “to call the Son of God a scoundrel is an awful thing to say.”

Yes, it was a shocking thing to say and I knew it was a shocking thing to say, but no one has the right to live without being shocked. No one has the right to spend their life without being offended.

Nobody has to read this book. Nobody has to pick it up. Nobody has to open it. And if they open it and read it, they don’t have to like it. And if you read it and you dislike it, you don’t have to remain silent about it. You can write to me. You can complain about it. You can write to the publisher. You can write to the papers. You can write your own book. You can do all those things.

But there your rights stop. No one has the right to stop the writing of this book. No one has the right to stop it being published, or sold, or bought, or read. And that’s all I have to say on that subject.