[famblycat]

>"Your right to say it", means exactly the right to say it and NOT suffer consequences.

It depends what consequences we're talking about here. There's a difference between the consequence of being thrown in jail for something you said and people thinking less/differently of you because of something you said. I suspect OP was referring to the latter.

[coldtea]

Yes, but what happened is the former: there were specific requests for his losing his job, and in the end he had to resign for them.

So, not just people "thinking less of him", but concrete consequences to his income (and hireability).

Basically, for a person with fewer means and, say, a mortage, it would be equivalent of having him go homeless for what he said...