This Ronald Dworkin‘s (1931-2013; lawyer, philosopher) note On the right to ridicule was published in the New York Review of Books on March 23, 2006.
The question whether we can make jokes about everything and whether there are limits to democracy as soon as we arrive at touchy subjects like religion and feelings never lost its topicality and, to go further than that, became more critical nowadays.
“Laws and policies are not legitimate unless they have been adopted through democratic process, and a process is not democratic if government has prevented anyone from expressing his convictions about what those laws and policies should be.”
“No religion can be permitted to legislate for everyone about what can or cannot be drawn any more than it can legislate about what may or may not be eaten. No one’s religious convictions can be thought to trump the freedom that makes democracy possible.”
First published in the Levinarium Telegram Channel (now closed and deleted)