Does the First Amendment protect someone's "right" to speak to me in public? To get in my face?

[MH1]

35. That's kind of where I started with my musing about this. But, here's the thing ...

It's probably hard to prove harassment unless the cop is standing right there. And most communities probably can't afford to station a cop at a clinic all the time. And why should my tax dollars have to go to that? And why should the clinic have to hire additional security staff to protect patients from assholes? *

With a buffer zone, it makes it easy to see and very clear-cut when the law is being violated.

* Why do people have to be assholes in the first place? And do they / should they have the right to be an asshole to another person in a public place? This is where I ended up ... it is not only people trying to go into a Planned Parenthood clinic, the problem occurs with nutjob religious and political jerks screwing with people trying to go about their business downtown .... this has happened to me ... it just isn't as universal, consistent, and threatening as the clinic protests have been, so it isn't really talked about, just mostly tolerated. (Except I read about a recent case in Philadelphia with a radical Muslim group that was royally pissing off the businesses it was obstructing downtown ... not sure where that one ended up.)