[throwawayaway]

I agree with your better idea for a title.

I respectfully disagree with what I read in the rest of your post, there is a fine tradition of free speech which goes even so far as to allow the KKK to parade with a police guard. Even the Westboro baptist church are afforded this. I find both organisations abhorrent, but the principle is sound. In the author's situation the debate is shut down time and again.

As a thought experiment, in a deeply religious country if something is considered offensive by your measure of "respect for others" for example women being banned from driving:

How could anyone change public opinion? There is simply no way to do that without offending people in that situation, so I think the truism you close on is totally wrong, it results in a non-free society.