1. Peter Molnar: One of the most common justifications forregulating “hate speech” is to prevent grave harms tomarginalized groups. According to this argument such speech stigmatizesand demoralizes members of such groups and prevents them from achievingfull equality in society. Do you agree?

2. Nadine Strossen: I totally disagree with the factualpremise. And even if I agreed with the premise, I still think thatsuppressing hate speech would not be an effective solution to thealleged problem.

So, first, I completely dismiss the claim that some people making nastyracist, sexist, or other discriminatory comments necessarily has a severeadverse impact on the individuals who are described. All of us have theability to reject ideas that are conveyed by various expressions. I speakfrom experience. I have been the subject of anti-Semitic comments,antifemale comments, anti–civil libertarian comments, personally defamatorycomments, and defamatory comments about an organization near and dear to me– and none of it affects my view of myself. It affects my view of thespeakers, and of the speakers’ ideas. Quite frankly, to suggest thatthere is inevitably a direct negative impact on the person who is insulted,I think, is insulting. It suggests that that person doesn’t have enoughself-confidence, doesn’t have enough critical capacity. We are not somehowautomatically diminished just because some bigot says something negativeabout us.