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I don't think it's so much that people want the word to be legal, it's that people want to ensure that the reason why it's legal remains intact.
What is the reason it should be legal?
Besides the 1st Amendment ensuring us that we have freedom of speech, making one word illegal would set a legal precident... if the outlawing of a particular word was ever upheld in a court of law, then every other word in any language spoken in the US would run the risk of one day being made illegal... the precident would open a door that would allow any person to petition the government to outlaw the use of any word because of it's offensiveness to them. What is and what is not offensive (as far as words go) is very subjective... if one Christian called another Christian an infidel (and meant it), that might be offensive
to them. If someone called me an infidel, I'd be unmoved since it's an accurate descriptor as it applies to me.
Using the N word itself as an example:
If a racist fucktard were to call a black person a nigger, that would be offensive... no question.
If a historian wrote a book about the civil rights movement, and quoted some Klansmen using the word nigger, that wouldn't be offensive, that would be documenting a racist using offensive language. Hell, Roots, The Color Purple, and most of Spike Lee's movies would be illegal.
Like I said, the results of speech can be illegal, but making words illegal just doesn't work constitutionally.