What the 1st Amendment Protects, and What It Doesn't

What the 1st Amendment Protects, and What It Doesn't

What the First Amendment makes clear is that it does not just protect the rights of speakers who say things with which Americans agree. Or, as the Supreme Court said in a separate decision it issued one year after the case involving the funeral protesters: “The Nation well knows that one of the costs of the First Amendment is that it protects the speech we detest as well as the speech we embrace.” But free speech is not absolute. The post What t…