We may not like their message and we may disagree with their tactics, but members of the Westboro Baptist Church of Topeka, Kan., have a right to picket military funerals, the U.S. Supreme Court said resoundingly last week. At the same time, the court said, states have a right to force funeral protesters to keep their distance from such ceremonies.

Oregon lawmakers are taking the court up on its suggestion. House Bill 3241, which more than half the members of the state House of Representatives have endorsed, would keep protesters a football field’s length away from funerals, memorial services and the like, not only during the service itself, but for an additional hour on each end.

That almost certainly won’t be enough space nor time to keep everyone happy. The Westboro group is noted for its ugly, homophobic protests at military funerals. Its members arm themselves with signs that say such things as “Thank God for dead soldiers,” and show up at military funerals around the United States. Many people would just as soon have the group barred from such events completely.

The church, by all accounts a tiny one, has gained attention out of all proportion to its size in recent years, even threatening to put in an appearance in Central Oregon a few years back. Church members had said they might picket the funeral of Pfc. Thomas L. Tucker, of Madras, who was kidnapped and brutally murdered in Iraq in 2006. They changed their minds at the last moment, saying their access to the fairgrounds had been too severely restricted to make the action worthwhile.

Chief Justice John Roberts, who wrote the opinion for the 8-1 majority last week, noted that speech like that of the Westboro picketers causes pain. But, he added, we should not react to the pain by punishing the speaker. He went on to note that their protests were about hot topics of current public discourse. Moreover, he said, the picketers were on public ground.

The House bill creating a buffer zone will not create a zone as big as some would like, no doubt. The 300-foot limit means picketers can be seen and perhaps heard by those attending services. At the same time, it ensures that picketers cannot make themselves the center of attention at services to which they have not been invited.

The bill already has had a public hearing in the House. Given its subject matter, it’s one measure that seems likely to sail across the legislative finish line and head to the governor in short order.