After those unpleasant people from the Westboro Baptist Church of Topeka, Kan., picketed the funerals of slain Montana soldiers, a bill to make such demonstrations illegal was as inevitable as it is unconstitutional.

Nobody would deny that the cult's actions are unspeakably hurtful to families of victims. And if their picketing doesn't give you an urge to wade into them with a large stick, you probably aren't human.

Legally, however, a law banning such picketing is an attack on the First Amendment's guarantee of free speech.

One might think that the cult members' gleeful applause for what they call God's killing of American soldiers because of the country's tolerance of homosexuals surely must qualify as "fighting words" - a category that is not protected by the First Amendment. But it turns out that however angry it makes you, it doesn't meet the "fighting words" criteria. It isn't enough that words are highly insulting or offensive and make people mad. The courts have ruled that "fighting words" must be spoken to an individual, not to a crowd, and they must be very likely to provoke actual violence.

People in a crowd, even a crowd at a funeral, are expected to turn away and give the speech the attention it is due. That is to say, ignore it.

During testimony on the bill - SB 15 - Scott Crichton, executive director of the ACLU of Montana, probably put this position as palatably as possible: "Offensive speech is better (fought) through counter speech than glorified through censure," he said.

The U.S. Supreme Court defends unpopular free speech more positively: A function of free speech, it said, is to invite dispute. "It may indeed best serve its high purpose when it induces a condition of unrest, creates dissatisfaction with the conditions as they are, or even stirs people to anger. Speech is often provocative and challenging."

In this country, the preservation of free speech is more important than our feelings. And it certainly is more important than some of the sick individuals who use it.