Amid the rising tide of political correctness, this decision was desperately needed. If speech as unpopular as Fred Phelp's is protected, we are all protected.
"This week, the Supreme Court of the United States ruled that the vulgar demonstration by members of the justly reviled Westboro Baptist Church of Topeka, Kan., at the 2006 funeral of Marine Lance Cpl. Matthew Snyder in Westminster, didn't go beyond the legal pale since it was behavior protected by the First Amendment.
The 8-1 ruling ended the efforts of the 20-year-old Marine's father, Albert Snyder, to collect damages for emotional distress he said was inflicted on him by the Westboro picketers, carrying their notorious "Thank God For Dead Soldiers" placards, and others describing Marines as "fags."
A lower court had awarded Mr. Snyder $11 million (later reduced to $5 million), a ruling that was overturned by the federal appeals court in Virginia. The Supreme Court vote — the sole dissenter was Justice Samuel A. Alito — upheld the appeals court decision.
Source
Another reason why this is a victory for many others is that Fred has the Bible on his side (See Romans 1). If he had lost, preaching the Bible would have been endangered.
Extended commentary here
11 comments:
Divorcing the emotion from the facts seems to be an almost Herculean task for most people regarding this issue.
I'm so glad he SCOTUS was able to do so - it's a shame that so many cannot.
Phelps hates the sin AND the sinner, that's not Christian at all. Neither is disrupting funerals, which is a sin against God.
Phelps may have won on free speech, and I suppose the next time some liberal wants to ban Fox News we can tell him that if Phelps can get away with being incredibly offensive, Fox News can get away with telling the politically incorrect truth.
By the way, Phelps is an attention whore, when "God Hates F-gs" didn't get enough attention he started attacking Jews, soldiers, America, etc. The man is shameless.
http://libertarians4freedom.blogspot.com/
Good point Gregory. It is about attention which means the MSM is just as guilty as Phelps, if not more so. Without the MSM, he and his band of cretins don't exist.
As for the SCOTUS decision, i don't see how they could have gone any other way. It was pretty clear that the behavior, as offensive as it is, was protected.
On the other hand, there are "many" people out there more-than-willing to protect these families in their time of grief, including many motorcycle "groups" like the Hells Angels, military units, off-duty Navy SEALS, and others, all of whom can make the message "very clear" to the Phelps group. End of problem!
As for the SCOTUS decision, i don't see how they could have gone any other way. It was pretty clear that the behavior, as offensive as it is, was protected.
It could have gone the other way and most likely would have gone the other way if not for two things:
1) Albert Snyder only saw the tops of the Westboro signs at the funeral. It was not until later on a news broadcast that he saw the actual messages. The SCOTUS ruled that as a matter of law that as Snyder had not seen the signs at the time, he could not prove one half of the necessary test for intentional infliction of emotional distress. That test examines time and distance and the SCOTUS ruled that Snyder's claim failed on that test.
2) The signs at the protest were not specific to Lance Corporal Snyder. The SCOUTUS ruled that the non-specificity of the signs placed the signs in the realm of discussion, rather than intentional infliction of emotional distress.
3) Some bad lawyering by Snyder's team. One of the things that was brought out by the judge in the original trial as an example of Westboro's speech was what became known as the "epic." The epic was a long posting on the Westboro website that made all sorts specific claims and accusations against Lance Corporal Snyder. This was a vile, reprehensible posting that had no reason for existing other than to cause Alfred Snyder distress. The 8 justices in the opinion said that as this was not presented at trial, it was not part of the proceedings and not part of their review.
Alito, the dissenting judge, said that the epic could not be separated.
It would be wrong to assume that this ruling is a blanket endorsement of Westboro's actions.
They dodged bullet.
I have a question.
If this moron's "speech" is protected, and I would dare call it "hate speech" then why do we have hate speech laws?
If (as the founders intended) even speech you deem hateful is free speech, then how can you prosecute someone for hate speech?
And BTW, I thought homosexuals were a protected class? How can it be that a judge in the PC-USA rule in favor of “christians” (I use that term loosely) over Gays?
There might be hope for free speech yet.
3:52am has got it right. The government agencies cannot stop this abuse of free speech, but offended indiviuals can. Baseball bats would be useful !
Just like Fred is free to spew his hate, one day a grieving relative is going to use his freedom to pound the sh1t out of one of the protesters.. Of course that person will then have to pay the price for that, but could any state find 12 people willing to convict that person of aggravated assault? I sure as hell wouldnt..
Homosexuals aren't a protected class, each state has different levels of protection or lack thereof.
In fact, as a libertarian I don't believe anyone should be a protected class. The founding fathers would have puked if they had seen such a vile thing as the EEOC.
http://libertarians4freedom.blogspot.com/
Homosexuals aren't a protected class, each state has different levels of protection or lack thereof.
Gays are a protected class as far as housing and employment at the federal level.
For those who think that this was a win for "free speech," that is not exactly true.
This is a case where the SCOTUS said that the speech did not rise to the level of intentional infliction of emotional distress for three reasons, any of which would have turned the case the other way.
First, the protesters were not seen by the father, Albert Snyder. One of the requirements of emotional distress is "immediacy" and as Snyder did not see the signs until they were shown on tv, he lost the immediacy argument.
Secondly, the posters signs were not specific in their attack on Lance Corporal Snyder. That portion of the argument never would have changed.
The last point is the so called "epic," which appeared on the Westboro website and was specific in its attacks and false allegations against Matthew Snyder. It appears that the lawyers of Albert Snyder did failed him. The "epic" was not presented at the original trial, but only was introduced in the penalty phase of the trial. Thus, the 8 judges ruled that the epic was not a part of the record as far as intentional infliction of emotional distress. The majority opinion says that they were not going to review the epic, but it seems clear that they wanted to and if it had been in the record, they would have gone the other way.
Alito, the only dissenting justice, felt that the epic was a part of the intentional infliction of emotional distress.
So, if Snyder had seen the signs, or if the signs of the protesters were more specific, or if the "epic" were introduced by Snyder's attorneys, this would most likely have gone the other way.
Let us note a couple of other things. Firstly, the protest was 1000 yards from the funeral. Therefore, it could hardly be said to have disrupted the funeral.
Secondly, the court awarded Snyder $10.6 million - later reduced to $5 - merely for "emotional distress": essentially having his feelings hurt. First Amendment considerations to the side, this is outrageous. Even in cases of severe harrassment, such a payout would be outrageous.
Personally, I cannot see how hurt feelings can possibly be considered as anything more than a misdemeanour. Otherwise, a nasty, mean-spirited little man like Phelps can sue us for millions for calling him a nasty, mean-spirited little man.
Cartoons can teach us everything we need to know...
"Just don't look!
Just don't look!"
Lisa Simpson and Paul Anka
"Treehouse of Horror-Attack of the 50' Eyesores!" season 6 I think.
Fred would dry up and vanish is you would all stop paying attention to him. No news time would dry up his funding and he would vanish.
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