Sounds pretty Canadian. “Hate speech” anyone?
What these people do is heinous, vile, disgusting, etc....
But it is not illegal. It is protected by the First Amendment.
There is no “right” to not be offended.
That’s a straw man. Nobody is claiming a right not to be offended.
You know, every time someone trots out that old line, it just yanks me back to a discussion on FR when the FLDS thing blew up and and people were commenting on the rights of the children in the case to be free from being sexually abused, and someone actually said that women and children to not have the right to not be raped.
"CONGRESS shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances."
The First Amendment restricts the actions and authority of the federal government. It doesn't mean that local municipalities or states can't enact legislation restricting protesting outside funerals.
Besides, phelps is free to say what he wants any other time he wants. Not permitting it during and at a funeral he attended for strangers he didn't know for the purpose of inflicting more pain and suffering on the family is not such an infringement on his freedom of speech that it warrants his abuse of the First Amendment and claims that he's protected by it.
This is more than a matter of not being *offended*. The First Amendment was not put in place in order to be misused to hold the country hostage to the despicable actions of a few deranged spawn of Satan.