This reminds me a little of the stuff I'm reading and the paper I wrote about banning hate speech. I agree with Charles Lawrence and others (critical race theorists...) that it's not just words or just speech or just a representation of ideas, so I understand where they're coming from with not wanting it protected under the First Amendment. It's not fair or just or...yeah. BUT, banning it, criminalizing it, doesn't solve anything, might even make it worse, and that is why I'm opposed, not some bullshit racist 'free speech' argument. I actually have like 5 or 6 reasons it's 'potentially' a bad idea, but yeah. Because I think the silence of subjugated/minority/dominated/etc. groups is more of a problem; because banning hate speech creates the illusion that you've solved the problem of racism when you haven't; because harrassment (speech or otherwise) constitutes a threat and is therefore hard to speak out against or turn in the perpetrators of; because insults are only that effective in the way Lawrence describes (silence-creating, illness-inducing, psychological disorder-creating) if you, however subconsciously, sort of believe them; because no one does anything about "microagressions" and if they didn't exist, none of the rest of it could; because the power of enforcing such legislation is in the hands of the very group whose members are able to commit the crime and Lawrence himself documents how such regulations end up turned against those they're meant to help...sigh. But mostly because of the silence, of the "If don't have to see it, we can pretend it doesn't exist," because of the lack of anyone speaking up for themselves against the hate speech--because what that sort so speech does is tell a person what it means to be themselves without admitting what it's doing, and a better solution gives the ability of self-definition to the 'victim.' Judith Butler agrees. I think...

Okay, wow, sorry for ranting. That's much more controversial...

Basically, yeah, I agree, what people want is to cover up all the uncomfortable realities so they can pretend they don't exist, and it makes me mad. Like conservative Christians who want to cover up the reality of teenage sex or homosexuality, get "offended" at the "insulting speech" of people who are just saying what they do or who they are. And I don't know wtf happened to my mother, but she is waaay too affected by such things. But the religious folk are much easier to pick on and art is much easier to defend... things like pornography blur the line a lot more, but banning pornography will not get rid of it or eliminate sexist view of women, so what, exactly, is the point? Go for the source of the problems, not the symptoms, not the representations of them, and certainly not art/literature/movies/etc. that bother to oppose them, even if they have to represent it in the process...