Government can impose "reasonable" restrictions, but only if those restrictions are imposed on everyone. For example you can ban people from being within 200 feet of a funereal, if that ban applies to EVERYONE, including people driving down the street just passing the funereal home on their way home to work or elsewhere. You can ban people from walking on the sidewalks, but that includes anyone walking, including people walking by the funeral home to get to their own home.
Now, Cities can demand you get a permit to use a public area for a protest, if the protest is in some form that is not the normal day to day use of that public area, for example a City can require a permit for a parade, but if you just want to drive all of your groups cars down the public street as part of traffic, obeying the traffic laws, but having signs on every car, the city can NOT require you to have a permit.
That is the problem for most funerals, the funeral home is on a main street often with a sidewalk. If someone wants to walk up and down that sidewalk with a sign and signing slogans, it can only be ban, if the city BANS ANYONE AN EVERYONE FROM DOING THAT ALL THE TIME. If there is no sidewalk, people have the right to walk on the public road for the same reason.
This comes up in the abortion clinic cases all the time. Reasonable restrictions are permitted, but
In Brown vs Pittsburgh
http://www.ca3.uscourts.gov/opinarch/081819p.pdf
In Brown vs Pittsburgh the The Federal Third Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that:
The Ordinance established two different kinds of zones around hospitals, medical offices, and clinics. Within the “buffer zone,” which extends “fifteen feet (15') from any entrance to the hospital and or [sic] health care facility,” “[n]o person or persons shall knowingly congregate, patrol, picket or demonstrate.” § 623.04. For convenience, we use the term “the City” to refer collectively to Defendants the City of Pittsburgh, the Pittsburgh City Council, and Luke Ravenstahl, in his official capacity as Mayor of Pittsburgh.
The “bubble zone” encompasses “the public way or sidewalk area within a radius of one hundred feet (100') from any entrance door to a hospital and/or medical office/clinic.” § 623.03. Within this one-hundred-foot zone, “[n]o person shall knowingly approach another person within eight feet (8') of such person, unless such other person consents, for the purpose of passing a leaftlet or handbill to, displaying a sign to, or engaging in oral protest, education or counseling with such other person.” Id.
The court upheld that the "Buffer zone" And the "Bubble zone" were constitutional, but NOT BOTH TOGETHER. The problem was balancing the right of being able to protest AND freedom of movement. Each separately could still permit the protesters to have they say, and still give people sufficient freedom of movement, but together impose to much restriction on freedom of Speech. Notice the "Buffer zone" was only 15 feet, and the "Bubble Zone" was 100 feet, but in that "Bubble Zone" you could move to someone, stand and protest, just NOT come near to someone closer then 8 feet.
The Key case on this subject is the Federal US Supreme Court Case of Madsen v. Women's Health Ctr. (93-880), 512 U.S. 753 (1994).
http://www.law.cornell.edu/supct/html/93-880.ZO.html
The US Supreme Court ruled the following, upholding and overturning a trial court court order to protesters at an abortion clinic. The key, to the court, was this is was in regard to a Hospital, thus noise restrictions could be imposed by a court order, but NOT image restrictions and any buffer zone restriction had to be narrowly made to ensure freedom of movement without interfering excessively with Free Speech. Please note this is a review of a COURT ORDER not a Statute, and a Court Order the Court assumed was narrowly drawn so that to minimize interference with the Free Speech:
In sum, we uphold the noise restrictions and the 36 foot buffer zone around the clinic entrances and driveway because they burden no more speech than necessary to eliminate the unlawful conduct targeted by the state court's injunction. We strike down as unconstitutional the 36-foot buffer zone as applied to the private property to the north and west of the clinic, the "images observable" provision, the 300 foot no approach zone around the clinic, and the 300 foot buffer zone around the residences, because these provisions sweep more broadly than necessary to accomplish the permissible goals of the injunction. Accordingly, the judgment of the Florida Supreme Court is
Affirmed in part, and reversed in part.
Some comments the Court made in the opinion:
The inclusion of private property on the back and side of the clinic in the 36 foot buffer zone raises different concerns. The accepted purpose of the buffer zone is to protect access to the clinic and to facilitate the orderly flow of traffic on Dixie Way. Patients and staff wishing to reach the clinic do not have to cross the private property abutting the clinic property on the north and west, and nothing in the record indicates that petitioners' activities on the private property have obstructed access to the clinic. Nor was evidence presented that protestors located on the private property blocked vehicular traffic on Dixie Way. Absent evidence that petitioners standing on the private property have obstructed access to the clinic, blocked vehicular traffic, or otherwise unlawfully interfered with the clinic's operation, this portion of the buffer zone fails to serve the significant government interests relied on by the Florida Supreme Court. We hold that on the record before us the 36 foot buffer zone as applied to the private property to the north and west of the clinic burdens more speech than necessary to protect access to the clinic.....
We hold that the limited noise restrictions imposed by the state court order burden no more speech than necessary to ensure the health and well being of the patients at the clinic. The First Amendment does not demand that patients at a medical facility undertake Herculean efforts to escape the cacophony of political protests. "If overamplified loudspeakers assault the citizenry, government may turn then down." Grayned, supra, at 116. That is what the state court did here, and we hold that its action was proper.
The same, however, cannot be said for the "images observable" provision of the state court's order. Clearly, threats to patients or their families, however communicated, are proscribable under the First Amendment. But rather than prohibiting the display of signs that could be interpreted as threats or veiled threats, the state court issued a blanket ban on all "images observable." This broad prohibition on all "images observable" burdens more speech than necessary to achieve the purpose of limiting threats to clinic patients or their families. Similarly, if the blanket ban on "images observable" was intended to reduce the level of anxiety and hypertension suffered by the patients inside the clinic, it would still fail. The only plausible reason a patient would be bothered by "images observable" inside the clinic would be if the patient found the expression contained in such images disagreeable. But it is much easier for the clinic to pull its curtains than for a patient to stop up her ears, and no more is required to avoid seeing placards through the windows of the clinic. This provision of the injunction violates the First Amendment.
Notice the court was interested in both freedom of movement AND free speech, and any restrictions on Free Speech must fall unless it is the bare minimum needed to permit freedom of movement. In the case of Military funerals, how can a 200 feet buffer zone truly balance those two freedoms? I am sorry, the more I read the Court Cases, a 200 feet buffer zone is to much restriction on Free Speech and thus unconstitutional.
One more comment, Scalia and Thomas dissented in Madsen v. Women's Health Center, on the grounds the restrictions on free speech was to great and should have been over turned. When this comes to the Supreme Court, will Scalia and Thomas vote to overturn it as their dissent indicate they would on such restrictions on freedom of Speech? Only time will tell.
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