"When they get too obnoxious, force would be justified to enforce public decency.
"
Uffda! So, if they say something you don't like, blasphemy, for example, you feel justified in using force to stop them.
If my hypothetical bumper sticker said: "There is no God...damn it!" you'd feel justified in using force to stop me from saying that?
Sorry, annalex, that' ain't American.
Public blasphemy or other public insult is a violation of rights unless the receiver of the message had consented to it. It would be fine in an environment which one enters knowingly, such as this forum. It is not fine on the public square if it violates the decency norm. Your comment is mild enough so it is not violative, and in fact the public square in the United States has deteriorated to such extent that it is hard to imagine anything to be below the pale. Nevertheless if some punk on the street, for example, yells at people that their wifes are ugly sluts and their children are cretins, such punk will be hauled away. The offence of plasphemy in justice should be treated no differently.
Stone Mountain: it's just your opinion that the judges who overturned the public decency laws understood the Constitution better than the ones who upheld them
I assume you meant the exact opposite. It is not just mine opinion: it is also the opinion of any conservative I know. These are the judges that gave us the IRS, the Social Security, undeclared by Conress foreign expeditions, the gun laws, and the hate crime laws, -- all in clear contradiction to the Constitution, -- and who invented the right to abortion from the constitutional penumbras. Besides, the 19 century judges were simply closer to the Founding Fathers in mentality and had a better grasp on the original intent of the Constitution.