One may identify three positions regarding freedom of conscience. First, the standard liberal position is one of tolerance. For the liberal, a person who believes a thing is free to do so as long as what he believes does not limit another man’s freedom. A second position, which I characterize in a moment, holds that a person who believes a thing is not free to do so. He must either never say he believes the thing or, if he openly expresses that belief, he must be suppressed. The third position is that those who do not believe the thing must be compelled to do so. If they do not, they must face consequences.
Let’s use Scientology as an example. According to this belief, at some point in the distant past, alien beings called thetans were scattered across the universe, and some wound up inside each of us. A technique called auditing reveals their presence. Although the thetan is unobservable, it is real to the person who believes in it. The standard liberal position is to tolerate the Scientologist. Insofar as others are unaffected by his belief, the man is free to believe in thetans if he chooses. For those who assume the second position, the man should not be free to hold this belief, and society must therefore suppress him. In the third position, all people must subscribe to Scientology, and those who do not must face the consequences of their disbelief.
One can replace Scientology with Islam, transgenderism, or any number of beliefs and practices, and the same three situations obtain. Let’s use the queer doctrine to illustrate. Queer doctrine involves the belief that gender identity is something inside of us that must be discovered and affirmed. For the transgenderist, gender identity, a subjective thing, may not align with the person’s sex. Because it is unobservable, gender affirmation is necessary to reveal one’s true gender. Gender identity is perfectly analogous to the Scientologist’s thetan or the Muslim’s soul.
The standard liberal position is to tolerate the trangenderist. A man is free to believe he is a woman if that’s what he chooses—as long as his belief makes no demands on those around him. Those working from the second position say the man should not be free to believe this, so society must suppress him. In the third position, all men must subscribe to the queer doctrine and its rules, and those who don’t must face the consequences for their disbelief and refusal to participate in queer norms.
Two of the three positions involve a specific type of coercion known as offensive force. One might think of this type of coercion as aggressive. In the first (the second position described above), people are punished for what they believe. In the second (the third position described above), people are punished for refusing to believe something. Both positions reduce to a single standpoint: authoritarianism.
The first position, which may involve a form of coercion known as defensive force, is the only one in which a person is free to believe what he will—or not believe what he won’t. If coercion is deployed, it is to protect freedom of conscience. Coercion is not used to force belief upon or from others.
The first position, defined above as the standard liberal position, sometimes called libertarianism, is the only standpoint that allows for personal liberty, and the only one in which coercion is rationally defensible. The rule is simple: compelling belief among others involves offensive force, and is thus aggression; deploying force to prevent others from compelling speech is defensive—and necessary for the sake of liberty.
