"Contrary to dominant views within international law and institutions, it is never democratically legitimate to punish citizens solely for repulsive or dangerous viewpoints expressed within public discourse. With the controversial exception of the US, however, most states prohibit some forms of racist, sexist, anti-religious, homophobic, or other intolerant speech. Hateful expression surely does afflict many of the people it targets. Most democracies therefore describe bans as—perhaps not always effective, but certainly symbolic—tools for defending the safety and equality of all citizens. Democracies must certainly promote pluralism, then, through comprehensive non-discrimination policies governing education, employment, and access to goods and services. States must promote values of equal citizenship through primary schooling and public interest campaigns, and must support models of best practice within the mass media. It is also legitimate for states to punish hate speech promulgated outside public discourse, as in situations involving harassment or so-called ‘fighting words’. Hate speech bans may even offer legitimate means of enhancing state security in unstable situations, as have at times arisen, for example, in India, Israel, Northern Ireland, or transitional democracies. Hate speech bans may genuinely enhance elements of state security, then, but they never enhance its democracy. We have overlooked that distinction through our failure to distinguish the three very distinct spheres of security, rights, and democracy. Those security or rights-based criteria which legitimate a state as a state are not the same as those which legitimate it as a democracy." (Publisher description)