How Ubiquitous should Free Speech be?

This short summarization and interpretation was written in regards to the article mentioned below for my Government class.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/10/us/10kansas.html?ref=constitutional_amendments

A Lived Experience: Testing the Limit of Free Speech

In Topeka, Kansas, a man by the name of Fred W. Phelps entertains a constant vigilance for the right of free speech. The method? He pickets, protests, preaches at the funerals of dead soldiers, claiming that their deaths are the wrath of a vengeful god acting upon sinners and evil-doers, and that their deaths label them as such. Starting in 1979 and continuing to today, Mr. Phelps has come under fire from all levels of government for his radical demonstrations, but he’s smashed all of the accusations and attacks with the shield and sword of the first amendment – the right to free speech.

The families of the deceased, of course, think that this guy is a disrespectful lunatic, anarchy-bent heretic, god-obsessed zealot, should be burned at the stake, etc. They would just as soon argue that his exercising of free speech is invading their rights as they would take the breath of life. It can be well expected that a grief-stricken parent would take up arms against those who would rail against their dead family, denouncing their demise as the fury of God, so it is no surprise that Mr. Phelps has come under fire, but his shield has held strong thus far, to the crusader’s discontent.

Mr. Phelps holds to his acts the impregnable barrier of the Bill of Rights. The right to free speech is such a nasty double-edged sword. With his exacting of the first amendment, he has scoffed at all attempts to put him behind bars, but he has also earned the honorary position of most publicly hated man in Topeka and the title “The Most Hated Man in America”. Oh the whips and scorns of expressing your beliefs, so painful.

This is where the debate begins. The crusaders contre to the Phelpses would argue that the first amendment has limits to its credence, arguing against the blatant inflammatory lexicon used by Phelps. Of course, the herald of God’s word would never agree with this. Me, Lord Erikshielder, I am honestly at an ethical crossroads here. I seriously stand for the rights granted by the constitution, and the higher part of the conscious believes that this man should be granted the right to spew every hateful word he wishes at whosever funeral he chooses, but then I envision the bullying that goes on in schools and by parents every day and I cannot – by the word of my moral code – cannot sanction this act. It bears to great a personal conflict to ever say that bullying of any sort can ever be allowed, and this act is no different. Even so, the Bill of Rights still stands a pillar of faux justice against this idealism. The streets just can’t be cleaned up by a rugged man with a gun and a purpose anymore.

“Some times the truest justice is found beyond the courtroom and the clouded eyes of politicians”