Where's the line between free speech and hate speech?

This week, Arizona Governor Jan Brewer signed emergency legislation to create a "funeral protection zone" banning protesters from being within 300 feet of a funeral while the service is being held.

The law, which also outlaws protests an hour before and an hour after a funeral, is aimed at preventing Fred Phelps and his Kansas-based Westboro Baptist Church from picketing the services for those killed during Saturday's attempted murder of congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords in Tuscon. The group (which, as a Shine user points out, is classified as a hate group by the Anti-Defamation League and the Southern Law Poverty Center) is mostly made up of relatives of the Phelps family. They're infamous for picketing funerals of fallen soldiers while having their children hold signs saying things like "Thank God for dead soldiers" and wearing t-shirts with anti-gay slogans.

Both houses of the Arizona state Legislature voted unanimously to pass the bill. But while protecting mourners makes sense-people in Arizona have volunteered to wear 8- to 10-foot-wide angel wings and act as a barrier between the funeral goers and the picketers-does banning protests, even offensive ones, erode our First Amendment rights? Where is the line between protecting freedom of speech and preventing harassment?

Being offensive isn't enough to get banned. Dr. Laura Schlessinger's use of a racial slur during her radio show and Sarah Palin's use of the term "blood libel" in reaction to the Arizona shootings offended many, but both are examples of protected free speech. According to the U.S. Supreme Court, as long as the speech is not "so infused with violence as to be indistinguishable from a threat of physical harm," it's allowed. But "unwanted, unwelcomed and uninvited behavior that demeans, threatens or offends the victim and results in a hostile environment for the victim" is considered harassment.

The new law doesn't prohibit the picketing, it just sets limits as to where and when it can take place. And when it comes to public protests, there are legal restrictions on the books already: In a 1991 case, a U.S. Court of Appeals decided found that "speakers do not have a constitutional right to convey their message whenever, wherever and however they please." The government is allowed to regulate the use of public property in order to ensure public safety -- so, for example, you can't hold a march in the middle of a highway during rush hour.

But what if what you're saying is protected, but where you're saying it makes it dangerous-or unwarranted? Is it still a war protest if the people who are targeted to witness it aren't in a position to do anything about the war? Is it a protest against homosexuality if the person who they are seeking to "change" is dead? And right now in Arizona, with a public servant clinging to life and several others, including a 9-year-old child, dead, is a funeral a place for any kind of protest at all?

Readers, what do you think: Does the new law erode the First Amendment right of free speech? Or is it a defense of those in mourning, who may have nothing to do with the politics of the protest?

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