A Quote by Salman Rushdie

The First Amendment defends all forms of speech including hate speech, which is why groups like Ku Klux Klan are allowed to utter their poisonous remarks.

Salman Rushdie

Quote Topics

Allowed Amendment First First Amendment Forms Groups Hate Hate Speech Including Ku Klux Klan Like Poisonous Remarks Speech Utter Which Why

Quote Author

Salman Rushdie
Indian - Novelist
Born: June 19, 1947

Which of the following two groups contains the most former grand dragons of the Ku Klux Klan - the first 59 Tea Party people you run into this morning, or the U.S. Senate Democratic caucus?

Howie Carr

I hate niggas! I hate em! I wish they'd let me join the Ku Klux Klan!

Chris Rock

They call themselves the Ku Klux Klan and they hate pretty much everyone who isn't like them. If you have the wrong color, religion, or birthplace, they don't like you. Around here it's mostly foreigners they hate.

Clare Vanderpool

Because of the free speech clause in the First Amendment, which is very clear, "The government shall make no law abridging freedom of speech," and it literally is about political speech. You can say anything you want about politics, a candidate, and the government cannot stop you. And the Democrats hate that.

Rush Limbaugh

People can do bad things with free speech as well as good. You have to defend the Ku Klux Klan as well as Martin Luther King. It's like that. If you're going to defend the principle, then you have to defend people who use the principle badly.

Salman Rushdie

The relevant part of the First Amendment here prohibits the making of any law, quote, "abridging the freedom of speech." And it's pretty well-established that speech comes in many forms.

Laura Sydell

The Supreme Court is expected to rule this week whether banning cross burning by groups like the Klu Klux Klan violates the first amendment. The outcome could affect the entertainment at Trent Lott's Christmas party.

Tina Fey

If a university official's letter accusing a speaker of having a proclivity to commit speech crimes before she's given the speech - which then leads to Facebook postings demanding that Ann Coulter be hurt, a massive riot and a police-ordered cancellation of the speech - is not hate speech, then there is no such thing as hate speech.