As a big ol' First Amendment absolutist, I've always thought that the whole "icky speech must be protected, too" thing isn't just a side effect of freedom of expression, it's central to the concept.

Yeah, some speech is downright awful, and deserves to be ignored. But that doesn't mean the government has any business preventing people from saying (or writing) it. For one thing, I want to know when people believe awful, appalling things so I can do my best to provide counter-examples. Suppressing speech doesn't kill bad ideas, it just drives them underground to fester and spread. Cultural infections, like physical ones, die off when exposed to light.

Yes, this means I tend to side with the small-l libertarians on the question of "hate speech" (as opposed to hateful actions, which I'm all for suppressing). It's not always a comfortable position to be in, but I don't demand that my own ethics make me comfortable.