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by kaashif 1348 days ago
If the speech gets offensive enough, you can get people to say it shouldn't be protected.

Is Fred Phelps holding a sign saying "Fags die, God laughs" at a military funeral protected speech? It was non-obvious enough that it went to the Supreme Court, meaning a lot of people thought he had no right to say that.

Do you have the right to burn a US flag in protest? There literally were laws banning that until the Supreme Court said that's protected.

I don't think it'd be hard to find people who are still in favor of a flag burning ban, or who want to ban offensive speech near funerals.

I don't have statistics but anyone who was around for those examples knows there were plenty of people on both sides.