"It is better to keep your mouth closed and let people think you are a fool than to open it and remove all doubt."
— Mark Twain
1) Did the government prevent the person's comments from being published or broadcast?
2) Did the government arrest, fine, bring criminal charges, jail or otherwise punish the person who spoke?
3) Did agents of the government kidnap the person off the streets or take them from their home in the middle of the night and make them "disappear"?
If the answers to the above are "no," THEN THIS IS NOT A FREE SPEECH OR CENSORSHIP ISSUE.
Duh.
People are free to speak their minds in this country. That includes having an opinion about what other people say. And if someone puts themselves in the spotlight (like, say going on a reality TV show or voluntarily doing an interview with the press), then they should be prepared for the repercussions when they show their ignorance and/or closed mindedness.
A&E suspending the Duck Dynasty guy is a business decision, plain and simple. A smart one? Maybe not. I don't understand why A&E has that show on in the first place, except for the cash cow they figured it would be. But it's not like they couldn't have known, even before the show made it to broadcast, that those might be the views of these folks. And if A&E didn't like those views, they never should have put the show on their network.
If you want to know what real free speech issues are, then read up on what happens in Russia and China and quit whining about so-called celebrities getting called out on their ignorance.
