"[T]he 1st Amendment shouldn't protect vile bigots,"
That is precisely the class of speech the First Amendment should protect. I thought that someone on this thread ought to make that point for the record.
Piers Morgan might consider that there was a period of time in America (and in England too for that matter) in which it was thought that sodomy was a vile practice but the First Amendment protected the rights of the gay movement to make their case which they did so successfully that today even to criticize gaydom is to reveal oneself to be a "vile bigot."
That is precisely the class of speech the First Amendment should protect. I thought that someone on this thread ought to make that point for the record. NB, you are correct in the above statement. The mistake in making the point, though, is that by making it; in the context of the Phil R./A&E dispute, you are validating all the knuckleheads that say this is about a violation of the 1st Amendment.
It's not; no ones rights were violated in this entire process. In fact, I would venture that the 1st A. was freely exercised through out. Phil R. said what he said. A&E decided who they wanted to freely associate with. The Duck Commander clan, along with multitudes of fans, let it be known that they would freely un-associate with A&E. And finally, A&E decided that they "feared the beard" so much that in the end they would rather freely associate WITH Phil R. instead of the hetero-phobic activists that caused this whole ruckus to begin with.
All in all, a whole lot of 1st A exercising going on through out the whole ordeal.