Knapjack, you said that protesting the dead was perhaps the right venue, but that depends upon content, not venue. It would be easy for WBC to say “I’m protesting the evil that the dead soldier did by not killing homosexuals” or something like that. Given both freedom of speech and freedom of religion, it would be hard to argue that mine was okay and theirs was not.

Because, in general, I find protesting at anyone’s funeral reprehensible (good or evil), I tended to favor this judgment not because the UBC are complete imbeciles (how do they know we’re not being punished for being gluttons?) but because they weren’t protesting the dead. They were protesting something else at what I would consider an inappropriate venue. We often restrict free speech (yelling fire in the theater is the common example, but slander is another), and I though I don’t favor restricting content I do think some restrictions on venue might be acceptable, such as this.

But, given your example, where you’re protesting the dead, that could be considered the correct venue. And, if (God forbid) the UBC were protesting at the funerals of the gay enlisted I would have to say let it ride.