Freedom of Speech does mean freedom from consequences, at least from any government that recognizes that freedom of speech. The phrase, “Freedom of speech is not freedom from consequences” refers to the ability of private entities to take negative actions against speakers engaging in free speech, simply because those negative actions were within the private entities’ rights all along. For example, the ability of any Lemmy instance to ban anyone they want.

Regardless, speech that is actively harmful, is false, or meets certain other circumstances (depending on which government you’re looking at) may not be recognized as covered free speech. Tucker Carlson is probably about to do a bunch of speech that is not covered by freedom of speech, which is why the expected sanctions will be justified.

The Catholics are going to be in a difficult place as gayness becomes more normal. It’s quickly becoming self-evident that homosexual relationships are not immoral at all. That’s probably going to accelerate over the next few decades.

So the church should probably do more than just this to accept gay people, but they can’t. Catholic rulings set by ecumenical councils or by the pope (in such a way as to invoke papal infallibility) can’t be changed. It’s like if the US constitution could only be amended if the amendments didn’t contradict or repeal any existing text.

So if the church says “no homo, and that’s final,” then they can’t go back and change it to “just a little homo, as a treat.” It’s hard to find an exact citation, but I’m pretty sure they’ve already said “no homo” enough to make it official, so there’s no going back from that. Unless they also retract infallibility.