A meaningful apology requires sincerity, admission of the harm done, and the will to make amends. Michael Coren's recent interview with CBC's Wendy Mesley should be required viewing for this alone.But it is much more than an apology. It is the contemporary equivalent of a morality play that neatly illustrates our ongoing struggles with a basic tenet of democracy: tolerance. Let's start with the apology.A public apology is a risky thing for any public figure. To admit wrong-doing—especially for something egregious—is to expose one's self to criticism from enemies, many of whom may be as likely to attack as to forgive.Such apologies therefore tend to be carefully hedged. Speakers admit no more than is necessary and smuggle in ways to explain away their admissions of guilt. The wrong they've committed, they may insist, was not really that serious, or just an accident, or perhaps it was the result of a simple misunderstanding.(For an example, see Conservative leadership candidate Kellie Leitch's recent non-apology for the proposed “barbaric cultural practices tip line.”)Not Coren. Far from dodging responsibility or qualifying the facts, he is disarmingly frank about his guilt, his remorse and his shame. And it is all convincing. Watching and listening, we begin to see why.As an arch-conservative and spokesperson for Canada's religious right, Coren devoted some 20 years to attacking liberal causes, from gay rights to assisted dying. Then two years ago he did a spectacular about-face on gay rights.In the Mesley interview, he explains the “epiphany” that changed his life. This was not just a philosophical dispute over Catholic doctrine. It was a highly emotional and intensely personal reaction to what was happening around him.Coren grew more and more distressed by the impact of the gay rights debate on his colleagues and the gay community. A wave of hatred was washing over everyone. Nor could he ignore his own contribution to it—or the harm his words visited on gay men and women.It sickened him. Jesus was not an evangelist or a proselytizer. First and foremost, Coren insists, Christianity is about tolerance, a refusal to judge others, and forgiveness. But Church doctrine has become ensnared in moral rules and abstractions. At last, he felt forced to choose between the abstractions and his identity as a Christian.Coren chose Christianity. And that meant he had to atone for his actions, starting with a public retraction of his views on gay rights and an apology to those he'd harmed. But for such an apology to be genuine, it had to be backed by a reordering of his own moral principles—which brings us to the lesson in this morality play.If Coren's previous mission was to ensure that public policy conforms to religious doctrine, his new mission is to ease the hatred and harm his earlier work helped create. In effect, he has exchanged his religious commitment to the Articles of Faith for a more humanist commitment to empathy and tolerance.It is a simple, but profound shift in outlook that follows in the footsteps of earlier religious reformers like John Locke and Thomas Jefferson, who recognized that in modern democracies the business of making laws—public policy—must be disentangled from religious doctrine.Locke, in particular, knew this well, having grown up during the Thirty Years' War (1618 – 1648) when European nations were tearing themselves apart over religion. In the end, a simple but transformative idea emerged that set a new baseline for peaceful co-existence: tolerance.In Locke's day, tolerance called on citizens and governments to recognize that issues like religion and political affiliation were private matters. Within the bounds of their constitutional rights, citizens were free to adopt different views, as they saw fit.Today, these rights reach beyond religion, speech and political affiliation to include a woman's control over her body, sexual orientation and assisted dying. From a public policy viewpoint, the emergence of new rights is supposed to enhance personal freedom by clarifying the boundaries around it.Unfortunately, people often disagree on which rights are real or where they begin and end. We've seen this in the debates over the niqab, same-sex marriage and, more recently, assisted dying.Citizens are, of course, free to hold personal views on sexual orientation, abortion or other issues of conscience, but the real lesson here is that promulgating them in public, as Coren has done, is a risky business, indeed. At a minimum, it calls for caution, sensitivity and respect. No one gets to take someone else's freedom away.Coren's story is an eloquent reminder that hatred and division are the flip-side of tolerance. They are also a tell-tale sign that someone, somewhere is overstepping the boundaries of their rights; and that someone's beliefs—religious or otherwise—need to be reined in.To his great credit, once encircled, Coren had the moral clarity to recognize the hatred for what it was and the moral courage to confront the consequences of his own actions. In this, he exemplified the kind of reflection, self-scrutiny, and resolve that democracy asks of every citizen.Perhaps ironically, along the way he also seems to have discovered what eluded him as an advocate of the religious right: an acceptable way to bring the spirit of Christianity into the secular world of public policy.Dr. Don Lenihan is Senior Associate, Policy and Engagement, at Canada 2020, Canada's leading, independent progressive think-tank. Don is an internationally recognized expert on democracy and Open Government. He is currently the Government of Ontario's principal advisor on its Open Dialogue Initiative. The views expressed here are those of the columnist alone. Don can be reached at:[email protected] or follow him on Twitter at: @DonLenihan