A "free-speech" advocate makes her point in the New York Times today:

Tyranny in the Name of Freedom

So it has come down to this: You are at liberty to exercise your First Amendment right to assemble and to protest, so long as you do so from behind chain-link fences and razor wire, or miles from the audience you seek to address.

The First Amendment reads as follows:

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.

There is no right to assemble AND protest. There is a right to assemble PEACEABLY and a right to complain to the GOVERNMENT.

That's right, the Republican Party actually has the right to go wherever they please and assemble without being molested and harassed.

People do not have a right to assemble with the intention of causing a racket, disrupting others' rights to assemble and certainly not to follow individual citizens around to dinner parties which is what many of the protesting organizations want to do.

Believe it or not, you do not have the right to go to private functions, even where members of government are present, and cause a disruption or otherwise deny those assembled the right to enjoy themselves unmolested.

Once again, it's this turning of the tables of responsibility. It's not the anarchists (ANARCHISTS!) fault that the city will be in chaos, it's the Republican's fault for daring to exercise their right to assemble! Remember the First Amendment?