History teaches us that opinion leaders have a special responsibility to counter offensive speech. Political leaders, the media, the courts, and much of academia freely and aggressively expounded ideas which today would be denounced and rejected by most Americans as racist. But those ideas laid the groundwork for the Jim Crow laws that it would take another half-century to topple. One suspects, unfortunately, that Speaker Jensen was not as forceful as he might have been, because their are many legislators in his Republican caucus who agree with Mr. White. At a legislative hearing I attended on the proposal, it was pointed out that these marriages are not recognized now in Wisconsin.
Intolerance is the driving force behind the so-called defense of marriage act.
While that would never happen to the all time sacks leader, there is a better reason to protect Mr. White's free speech rights than his celebrity status. Namely, we don't want to make an exception to the First Amendment that is content based . Every person finds some speech offensive or hurtful. In the mid 1980s Law School professor Catherine MacKinnon led an effort to censor sexually explicit materials deemed degrading to women. Today, legislators want make an exception for political speech they say is flag desecration.