Kicked out of bounds: Forced respect disrespects

What I read

In "The N.F.L. Is Being Anti-American" (2018), David Leonhardt argues that although there are more effective ways to highlight racism in the United States, forcing National Football League (N.F.L.) players to pretend to respect the national anthem is far worse because it contradicts the core American values of a free people. Whilst he agrees that private institutions have a right to make up their own rules on the behaviour of employees and customers, he argues that since the NFL receives substantial public financial benefits, it should be treated as a state institution which may not suppress free speech merely because that speech is deeply offensive to even a large majority of citizens, and therefore may not fine kneelers who refuse to stand to pretend to respect a symbol.

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My response 

I was getting worried with my summary because Leonhardt was not wasting words and almost every sentence states an idea I thought important, so it took me a bit of work to pick out the most important ideas and combine them into my short summary that is 134 words. In fact, it took about five revisions to get it right. Happily, this response section is much easier. 

Censorship is often problematic, and I think it's natural for us to want to ban speech or other expressions that we dislike. For example, I dislike anti-gay comments and sexist speech, such as jokes some tell because they think it's fun. It might be fun, but it's also disgusting. However, I don't think that my, or your, personal dislike of something is a good enough reason to ban it, and the US courts are right to allow bigots to say such filthy things as, "God hates fags (gay people)," which the hateful Westboro Baptist Church regularly says in public. For Americans, respecting the flag is even more controversial and American presidents regularly talk about making it illegal to, for example, burn or otherwise destroy the US flag as a protest. But the US Courts, especially the US Supreme Court, refuse to allow that censorship, however many politicians or voters might want to make such an oppressively unAmerican law. 

To be honest, I have no interest in NFL games, but I think it's admirable that some players have the courage to suffer for what they believe to be right. Fortunately, they are not yet labelled criminals under US law for doing that, and the strong democratic principles in the US Constitution would not allow that. In fact, I'm curious to see how the actions of the NFL will play out. Will the teams or players fined or discriminated against take it to court? I hope so. I think that if such laws or regulations get to the Supreme Court that the nine justices will rule them against the excellent US Constitution and therefore not legal.  

I'm not American, but I am a great admirer of the US Constitution, which has stood the test of time for over 200 years, and guided the American nation as it overcame the usual problems that confront every country: corrupt politicians, mob rule, bad populist policy, legalized prejudice and the usual disagreements that are a normal part of any nation's life. My own country, Australia, also has a strong constitution to protect my nation from majority wishes that would be anti-democratic and against the core democratic values of Australia, but the US manages to do it in far fewer words. We Aussies might disagree about many things, as Americans do, and we have often revised it, but we respect the supreme rule of law, the constitution that defines our nation. 

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My question

Should offensive speech or acts be illegal, or must they be protected by the law? 

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Reference

• Leonhardt, D. (2018, May 24). The N.F.L. Is Being Anti-American. The New York Times. Retrieved from https://www.nytimes.com/2018/05/24/opinion/nfl-kneeling-protest-free-spech.html