Doctrine and Covenants 134:10 10 We believe that all religious
societies have a right to deal with their members for
disorderly conduct, according to the rules and regulations of such
societies; provided that such dealings be for fellowship and good standing; but we do not believe that any religious
society has authority to try men on the right of property or life, to take from them this world's goods, or to put them in jeopardy of either life or limb, or to inflict any physical punishment upon them.
It presages a law captured by the rhetoric of the right to freedom of expression without due regard to the value underlying the particular exercise of that right; a law in which, under the guise of the right to freedom of expression, the «right» to offend can be exercised without responsibility or restraint providing it does not cause a disruption or disturbance in the nature of public disorder; a law in which an impoverished amoral concept of «public order» is judicially ordained; a law in which the right to freedom of expression trumps — or tramples upon — other rights and values which are the vital rights and properties of a free and democratic
society; a law to which any number of vulnerable individuals and minorities may be exposed to uncivil, and even odious, ethnic, sexist, homophobic, anti-Christian, anti-Semitic, and anti-Islamic taunts providing no public disorder results; a law in which good and decent people can be used as fodder to promote a cause or promote an action for which they are not responsible and over which they have no direct control; a law which demeans the dignity of the persons adversely affected by those asserting their right to freedom of expression in a
disorderly or offensive manner; a law in which the mores or standards of
society are set without regard to the reasonable expectations of citizens in a free and democratic
society; and a law marked by a lack of empathy by the sensibilities, feelings and emotional frailties of people who can be deeply and genuinely affronted by language and behaviour that is beyond the pale in a civil and civilised
society.