It doesn't work like this in the States I know, but here in Britain we have an understanding about freedom of speech.
You have the right to believe what you want, and to speak what you want.
However, you do not have the right to force others to listen to you, to make your neighbourhood a hostile and unfriendly place, to make a certain group feel unsafe and to try and rally people into hating said group.
This is why these men were arrested, and this is also why the Westboro Baptist Church was banned from coming to Britain. That's simply how it works in Britain, it's how it's always worked. We're not shitting on anyones freedoms, since you've never had the freedom to do what these men did in this country.
These men could of spoken their views in their houses, or organised little bigot meetings, or even spoken it in an out-of-the-way part of a park. They cannot speak it in the middle of a suburb and they cannot actively badger passerbys about it (they were handing out leaflets).
Plus: If you were a gay person, would you feel safe walking past those men, knowing they wanted you dead? Probably not.
Right to announce your bullshit is trumped by the right for others to feel safe in their streets.
