Anecdotal:
There used to be an apoplectic ‘street preacher’ who stood outside the subway entrance that I used regularly. He’d stand there literally for hours; hysterically screaming his ‘sermons’ at the top of his lungs, all red-faced and veins bulging… despite the obvious and consistent lack of people paying him any attention.
As long as he stayed twenty feet from the actual entrance itself, or that of any business or residence, the local beat cops didn’t bother him. That was the first amendment, in action.
But the moment he decided to encroach on the pedestrians walking by, or when his actions began to interfere with the surrounding flow of commerce, they were on him like white on rice for creating a public disturbance or trespassing, or both.
For the most part, he chose to abide by the set parameters and those of us who passed him by learned to invest in good headphones. (Since I moved back to the area I haven’t seen him in years; I can only assume he eventually screamed himself into a stroke.)
That is a prime example of tolerance for the sake of free speech without disseminating it, or giving it any amplification or the appearance of ‘legitimacy.’
