[bluesnowmonkey]

Counter-example: You own a bookstore located in a mall -- leased space. The mall's managing company says you are no longer allowed to sell Bibles.

Now I'll apply your logic.

"The Constitution doesn't give you the right to use that mall space in the first place. The mall owns it, and has the understandable perception that it's their choice how it gets used, not yours."

Hopefully you can see that something has gone wrong, regardless of legal compliance. Freedom is neither bestowed by a piece of paper nor by men with guns or gavels. It is a cultural trait manifest in our actions. We're not free unless we live like free people.

Would you call yourself a musician if you had no instrument to play? How can you claim to have free speech, if your medium of communication is removed whenever you try to say something unpopular?

[tptacek]

Counter-counter-example: you operate a mall and the Ku Klux Klan wants to lease one of your shops.

Note that discrimination because of "race, color, religion, national origin, sex, handicap or familial status" in the sale or rental of real estate is unlawful under the FHA only in the housing market.

What's your point? The issue here isn't whether I think people should or shouldn't be allowed to burn the Koran; it's "what does the 1st Amendment mean?"

[rbanffy]

The understanding of the 1st amendment is your straw man. By refuting it you believe you successfully refute the argument that this is, in effect, a disturbing form of limitation of free speech by a private corporation who happens to own the machines used to manifest the speech they disagree with.