In my youth, the greatest culture war issues were abortion and same-sex marriage. While these are two very distinct issues, the left made great progress on both by convincing many Americans, especially in my Millennial generation, that theirs was the “live-and-let-live” position.

Today, questions about gender identity and ideology are often thrown in with these other “culture war” issues. This is not appropriate. On gender issues, the left is not fighting to have the culturally dominant narrative or set of values. They aren’t even pretending to fight for freedom. They’re demanding fealty. The left’s mantra has shifted from “live and let live” to “speak as we say — or else.”

The Sept. 1 arrest of Irish comedian Graham Linehan at Heathrow airport in London for offensive speech is the latest example. But this isn’t just a problem in Europe. Linehan could have been in trouble with the law in Colorado had he expressed his views on gender here.

Earlier this summer, Colorado Gov. Jared Polis signed HB 1312, a new state law that prohibits forms of discrimination against transgender-identifying individuals, including protections for their chosen name and pronouns. Now, in Colorado in certain settings, it’s against the law to use the biologically correct pronouns for trans-identifying people if that doesn’t match how they “choose to be addressed.”

Furthermore, the new law includes a set of vague prohibitions against statements that make trans-identifying people feel “unwelcome, objectionable, unacceptable or undesirable.”

Linehan was arrested for posts on X that mocked and derided trans-identifying people. One post jokingly encouraged women to “punch him in the balls” if they encountered a male in a woman-only space. Another said, “I hate them,” and referred to pro-trans advocates as “misogynists and homophones.”

Surely, the ideas expressed in these posts would make trans-identifying people feel unwelcome. And the reference to a trans-identifying male as “him” would be considered “misgendering.” Therefore, Linehan’s perspective, even if expressed in a less crude or gentler way, would be in violation of Colorado’s HB 1312 (if uttered by a worker in a place of public accommodation).

But importantly, Linehan’s comments would not be in violation of the First Amendment in the United States, which protects even hateful speech. This sets up a constitutional issue for Colorado’s law.

Not surprisingly, the brand-new law is already facing two major legal challenges from several individuals, businesses and organizations. These challengers reasonably argue that they should not be compelled to speak in a way that doesn’t align with their views (or reality), and that law itself discriminates based on viewpoint, targeting only people with a traditional view of gender.

Compelled speech is propaganda with better branding. Forcing people and businesses to use certain language just to make one group feel comfortable is not a laudable public policy goal. Nor is it politically palatable. The policing of speech will create more ill will than inclusion. Handcuffing comedians is not a good look for the political left. Neither is losing in court, but that’s all but inevitable in these two Colorado cases.

The progressive left offers a politically competitive contrast with conservatives on culture war issues like abortion and same-sex marriage because they’ve made these into questions about freedom. Should women be “free to choose?” Should gay people be “free to marry?”

Fortunately, the left is losing on the gender issue precisely because they’ve abandoned the effort to win culturally and politically. It once won cultural battles by persuasion. Now it seeks to win by prosecution. The left has adopted the cudgel of draconian speech codes, and therefore put themselves squarely in the anti-freedom camp. There’s simply no way to argue that a restriction on speech is a truly liberal position.

To arrest, fine or otherwise penalize people for expressing themselves is the abandonment of liberty itself. Free societies cannot endure when speech is policed by the state. If we wish to preserve freedom, we must reject these draconian codes outright and defend, without apology, the right to speak candidly and even offensively. Anything less is surrender.

Hadley Heath Manning is executive vice president at the Steamboat Institute.