Justice & Law Quote by Jay Alan Sekulow

“Robust speech” sounds like a civic vitamin, something you’re supposed to take daily for the health of the republic. Sekulow’s line borrows that wholesome language and then spikes it with a deliberately abrasive add-on: “even insulting speech.” The move is strategic. It doesn’t just defend the right to speak; it defends the kind of speech most people instinctively want regulated. By foregrounding the unpleasant edge case, he’s reminding listeners that the First Amendment isn’t designed to protect polite consensus. It’s built to protect dissent, disruption, and yes, the occasional jerk.

As a lawyerly claim, the sentence leans on institutional authority (“The court has said”) to preempt the emotional argument that insult equals harm equals censorship. That opening clause functions like a shield: don’t argue with me, argue with precedent. The sidewalk matters too. Public sidewalks are the quintessential “traditional public forum” in U.S. constitutional culture, the stage for pamphleteers, protestors, picketers, and preachers. By situating speech there, Sekulow invokes a specifically American mythos of democracy happening in the open air, not behind platforms’ terms of service or private security lines.

The subtext is culture-war practical: this isn’t abstract philosophy, it’s litigation-ready messaging for conflicts where offensive speech is the point - demonstrations outside clinics, rallies, campus protests, street preaching. Sekulow is framing a moral discomfort as a constitutional feature, daring critics to admit they want a quieter, more managed public square.