Why be so censoring?

Someone just asked a truly offensive (to some) questions on here and I took the time to answer it to hopefully alleviate some of her ignorance and then I hit refresh and poof! It got deleted. Now I understand getting offended about things but I really don't think its fair to delete something just because its offensive. It was not a poorly constructed or otherwise badly written question. Why report and consequently delte things that open up a real debate? Isn't that one of the tools of the internet?