Samuel Moore, the Club Velvet owner who served a brief stint in jail for having sex with a minor, probably wouldn't be any political movement's first choice for poster child. But the strip-club owner is becoming a minor crusader for free expression.
Moore already has stared down the City of Richmond in a dispute over a sign he erected opposing a baseball stadium proposal for Shockoe Bottom. Monday he drew a small crowd of protesters from the NAACP who object to an anti-Obama sign Moore has put up. The protesters say the large Obama/Joker poster is disrespectful and racist.
Whether the poster is racist -- whether its accusation of "socialism" is accurate -- whether George W. Bush received much the same treatment from his administration's critics -- is by now thoroughly well-plowed ground. No need to dig it up again here.
We will note, however, that the NAACP is doing exactly what defenders of free expression say ought to be done in cases when one party finds another party's point of view outrageous. It is answering speech with more speech. We'll take that any day over campus speech codes, corporate censorship through lawsuits, and First Amendment ghettos masquerading as "designated protest areas."
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