J.K. Rowling may not be a fan of Donald Trump’s bombastic rhetoric, but she firmly believes that he, like everyone else, has the right to speak his mind.
During a speech at the 2016 PEN Literary Gala and Free Expression Awards, the Harry Potter author brought up the petition last year that attempted to ban the GOP front-runner from entering the United Kingdom.
The self-described “moderate and liberal” Rowling had to stop the audience from applauding when she mentioned the petition had received over 500,000 signatures to deliver her point about maintaining free speech.
“I find almost everything that Mr. Trump says objectionable,” she said. “I consider him offensive and bigoted. But, he has my full support to come to my country and be offensive and bigoted there.
“His freedom to speak protects my freedom to call him a bigot,” Rowling continued. “His freedom guarantees mine.”
This is the same woman who once tweeted that “Voldemort was nowhere near as bad” as Trump.
Rowling said that anyone who tries to stifle Trump’s ability to express himself will find him or herself on rocky moral footing.
“Unless we take that absolute position without caveats or apologies, we have set foot upon a road with only one destination,” she said. “If my offended feeling can justify a travel ban on Donald Trump, I have no moral ground on which to argue that those offended by feminism, or the fight for transgender rights, or universal suffrage should not oppress campaigners for those causes.”
Rowling then aimed her wand at the concept of safe spaces, an idea that has morphed into a concept, especially on American college campuses, that anything deemed remotely offensive justifies taking away the offender’s right to free speech.
“If you seek the removal of freedoms from your opponent simply on the grounds they have offended you, you have crossed a line to stand alongside tyrants who imprison, torture and kill on exactly the same justification,” she said.
Earlier in the speech, Rowling had challenged the concept that a media outlet that disagrees with a person’s worldview is automatically “guilty of bias and corruption.”
She brought herself back into the discussion, asserting that just as she has the right to turn Trump into a rat, her critics have the right to aim their unforgivable curses at her.
“My critics are at liberty to claim that I’m trying to convert children to Satanism,” she quipped. “And I’m free to explain that I’m exploring human nature or morality — or to say you’re an idiot, depending on which side of the bed I got up on that day.”
