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...