(cont'd from yesterday's post)
Atheist (Boghossian) and Christian (Miller) are now friends, fighting on the same side. They have travelled together and spoken together on the same platform. What do they have in common? They both believe in freedom of speech and objective truth. Passionately.
Miller, like me and most believers, has always defended the rights of people who disagree with us to speak what they believe. It was no great leap for him to fight cancel culture on college campuses. But it probably was a leap for Boghossian because his own preferred politics on the left tends to silence dissenting opinions.
As a Portland professor, Boghossian invited a speaker to campus in 2017 to talk about possible biological gender differences. "Social justice advocates" on campus responded with tying his name to the Nazi swastika, with threats, and with a bag of feces. He says they silence and punish diverse views, becoming "what they claim to hate - thugs and bullies."
He (like Robert George) believes that speaking what you believe to be true in spite of danger . . is a moral duty. It's being suppressed where he worked, at Portland State University. So, putting his money where his mouth is, he resigned.
From his resignation letter: "Faculty and administrators have abdicated the university’s truth-seeking mission and instead drive intolerance of divergent beliefs and opinions. This has created a culture of offense where students are now afraid to speak openly and honestly."
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