“Under the Equal Protection clause, not to mention the First Amendment itself, government may not grant the use of a forum to people whose views it finds acceptable, but deny use to those wishing to express less favored or more controversial views.”

Bad news to all you supports of the fairness act.

Very self explanitory

This answers Mike's reservations above. While free speech is messy it gets the job done better than any other way.

The statement is contradictory...like everything in our "law system"

But Waffler, the Fairness Doctrine is all about censoring those that speak out against socialism -- why do you support that?

My reservations about this quote stem not from its face content. Rather, they stem from the stark reality surrounding "free speech" as it's practiced in the US today. The Supreme Court may have found in this particular case that government can't control a forum's content, but they've been equally clear in that content can be utterly controlled by the owners of a private forum -- which is the precise state of today's prevailing media. Nowadays media consists of a mere handful of wholly owned, private forums -- now numbering much fewer, insofar as ownership and plurality of voices are concerned, than forums past. This, with today's ownership being much less regulated than at any time since broadcast media became technically possible. The government can't control the message, perhaps, but the plutocrats can. And folks, THEY DO.

John L. Mann, great points, jump in more often.

I agree. And the United States is the only country where the Government can be - and is - stopped when it is trying to stop free speech. What the Founding Fathers built here is indeed remarkable.

http://www.commoncause.org/site/pp.asp?c=dkLNK1MQIwG&b=4923173 Just happened on this today under the Common Cause website regarding how many corporations, number decreasing steadily, own the use of our "public airways", for their private use by the way. Thanks Kalamazoo for your input.

We are losing "free speech" because many of us do not really listen, and remember what we see and hear, and act on what we understand is happening.