Gene Policinski: Why protect speech we don’t want to hear? We need to hear it

  We periodically test and retest the limits of free speech — in effect, revisiting the legal and societal implications of that old childhood refrain, “sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me.”

  Recently, free speech has been winning…even when it hurts, as surely it sometimes does.

  Last week, the U.S. Supreme Court said a Seattle rock band called “The Slants” had a right to register its name over the objections of the Patent and Trademark Office.