The label (not to mention idea) of “free speech” is really a bit of a misnomer, despite free speech being in the limelight after JD Vance, speaking to the Munich Security Conference on 14 February, said: “Free speech, I fear, is in retreat…”
Speech, of course, is never entirely free as we can never say absolutely anything we like. Traditionally, the line was drawn where speech incited or provoked violence. The Public Order Act 1986, for instance, criminalises the use of “threatening, abusive or insulting words or behaviour” with the intent to cause others to believe that violence will be used against them.
What JD Vance meant was that the boundaries of what one can and cannot legally say have been pushed too far, hence Christians expressing views contrary to the prevailing secular ideology find their freedom of speech wrongly curtailed.
