Supreme Court to hear Snyder vs Westboro case

Vampire_Hunter_Bob

Cats are great
The US Supreme Court is set to hear a high-stakes battle over free speech on Wednesday in an appeal filed by the father of a US Marine killed in Iraq who claims his son’s funeral in 2006 was disrupted and ruined by an antigay protest.
Albert Snyder had won a $5 million jury verdict against the Rev. Fred Phelps and members of his Westboro Baptist Church for intentional infliction of emotional distress and violating the sanctity of the funeral of his son, Lance Corporal Matthew Snyder. But the judgment was later reversed by a federal appeals court panel that ruled that despite the offensive nature of the protests conducted by the Westboro members, their activities were protected by the First Amendment.
Mr. Phelps is well-known nationally for his fire-and-brimstone opposition to homosexuality. Since 2005, he and members of his Topeka, Kansas-based church have organized protests at military funerals of service members who are not gay in an effort to attract public attention to their cause.

The group believes that God hates homosexuality and is punishing America for its growing acceptance of gay rights by killing US troops overseas.

Family members and others at military funerals have complained about the protests. But Phelps and his supporters insist they have a constitutional right to carry their message to the people at the funerals.

Snyder had one (and only one) opportunity to bury his son and that occasion has been tarnished forever, wrote Mr. Snyder's lawyer, Sean Summers of York, Pa., in his petition urging the high court to take up the case. Snyder deserved better. Matthew deserved better. A civilized society deserved better.

The appeals court that reversed the jury verdict did not disagree with that point. But the appeals court said despite the distasteful and repugnant nature of the words being challenged, Phelps had a First Amendment right to speak on public issues, even when the speech was highly offensive.
The panel quoted a fellow appeals court judge: Judges defending the Constitution must sometimes share [their] foxhole with scoundrels of every sort, but to abandon the post because of the poor company is to sell freedom cheaply.

The opinion continues: It is a fair summary of history to say that the safeguards of liberty have often been forged in controversies involving not very nice people.

Phelps’s lawyer, his daughter Margie Phelps of Topeka, said that contrary to claims by opposing counsel, the Westboro protesters did not disrupt the funeral service.

The seven picketers stood in a place designated by a priest and by the police, over a thousand feet from the funeral, she said. They sang songs and waved signs that included the messages: Youre Going to Hell, and Thank God for Dead Soldiers. The demonstration was neither visible nor audible to those attending the funeral, she said.

No one going to the funeral saw them, including [Mr. Snyder], Ms. Phelps writes. Snyder did not hear them; and, they were gone when he left the church.

Margie Phelps says Snyders objections to the protest were prompted by news footage he viewed after the event and by written material he viewed on the Internet a month after the service.

Westboro's lawyer said Snyder's lawsuit violates the free speech protections of the First Amendment because the church members were engaged in public speech that has not been proven false.

The Constitution is imperiled if a subjective claim of outrage can be used to penalize into silence speech that does not make false statements of fact, uttered in public arenas on public issues, Margie Phelps writes.
In asking the Supreme Court to overturn the appeals court decision, Snyder's lawyer says the high court has never granted categorical protection to the type of speech at issue in the case.

Mr. Summers says his client is a private individual who had done nothing to hold himself up as part of a public event or controversy. There is no reason for the court to extend absolute protection to expressive conduct that intentionally harms that individual, he says.

Mr. Snyder had a substantial privacy interest in attending his son’s funeral without unwanted interference, he writes. The Phelpses conduct during Matthew Snyders funeral caused Mr. Snyder serious emotional and physical hardship and hindered his grieving process.

Summers adds in his brief: The Phelpses freedom of speech should have ended where it conflicted with Mr. Snyder's freedom to participate in his son's funeral, which was intended to be a solemn religious gathering.

The case is Albert Snyder v. Fred Phelps.

It's going to be interesting to see how this is going to end up playing out. What is more important, rights to privacy or the right to free speech? Hopefully they manage to come down to something that satisfies Snyder and people afraid of infringement on Free Speech. Either way this goes, one side is going to dislike the outcome of this.

All said, I’m pretty sure the Court is going to end up ruling in favor of the Westboro Church.
 

Aazealh

Administrator
Staff member
Sounds like bullshit to me. If they really disturbed the funeral, I see it as no different from walking into people's homes and insulting them.
 

Rhombaad

Video Game Time Traveler
Aazealh said:
Sounds like bullshit to me. If they really disturbed the funeral, I see it as no different from walking into people's homes and insulting them.

And freedom of speech has limits. You still can't yell "Fire!" in a crowded movie theater. I know it's not the same situation, but the point is there are exceptions. Certain things are sacred and shouldn't be infringed upon by a bunch of wack jobs.
 

Aazealh

Administrator
Staff member
Rhombaad said:
And freedom of speech has limits. You still can't yell "Fire!" in a crowded movie theater. I know it's not the same situation, but the point is there are exceptions. Certain things are sacred and shouldn't be infringed upon by a bunch of wack jobs.

Exactly. I mean in this case it's clear they're using the 1st amendment to try to avoid facing their responsabilities and not to actually protect their freedom of speech. It's shameful and I hope the final verdict will show some common sense (again, assuming they did disturb the funeral).
 

Johnstantine

Skibbidy Boo Bop
Ah, yes. The cocksucker Fred Phelps. What a worthless, vile piece of trash this human is.

They're going to get what's coming to them, eventually. All they have to do is piss of the wrong group of people at the wrong time. I honestly can't tell you why it hasn't happened yet, though.

I wish it would.
 

Aazealh

Administrator
Staff member
Johnstantine said:
They're going to get what's coming to them, eventually. All they have to do is piss of the wrong group of people at the wrong time. I honestly can't tell you why it hasn't happened yet, though.

It hasn't because we don't live back when the Bill of Rights was written. I wonder if this kind of shit would have flown at the time (Ok, not really).
 
Aazealh said:
It hasn't because we don't live back when the Bill of Rights was written. I wonder if this kind of shit would have flown at the time (Ok, not really).
I don't think this shit would have flown 15 years ago.. The cops would have looked the other way while the protesters had their asses handed to them. This same group came to my town after Matthew Shepard was tortured and killed. They're scum.
 

Vampire_Hunter_Bob

Cats are great
Aazealh said:
Sounds like bullshit to me. If they really disturbed the funeral, I see it as no different from walking into people's homes and insulting them.

I think the worst part is that right after they did the protest they created some 'epic' story about the guys son on their web site and short of actually looking it up I found it summerized:
http://www.wtsp.com/news/local/story.aspx?storyid=143392
It was more than the hateful signs near the funeral at the Catholic Church service in the family's hometown, he says. The video on the Westboro website that Snyder found days later also caused him pain. Entitled The Burden of Marine Lance Cpl. Matthew Snyder, it asserted Snyder and his ex-wife had "taught Matthew to defy his creator" and "raised him for the devil."

But what he sued them for was that, according to the dad, they intentionally infliction emotional distress, intruded on their privacy and committed civil conspiracy (somewhere else I read this was that they turned a private event into a public one).

One of the questions asked today.
Justice Samuel Alito offered a scenario where a grandmother raises a boy who becomes a soldier in Iraq and dies there. The grandmother goes alone to visit her grandson's grave, and on her way home she is waiting for a bus and is harassed by someone who says he is glad her grandson died and wished he were there to see it.

Counselor Phelps tried to put that situation under a different legal umbrella, suggesting that the person harassing the grandmother could be considered to be inciting "fighting words."

I see what she's saying, but all of their protests have for the most part been about doing just this. They pretty much do just this by showing up. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BZGKx2pTBQc

Maybe an exception will be made for the intention of causing emotional distress.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mike_Gallagher#Westboro_Baptist_Church
On October 6, 2006, Gallagher convinced the controversial Topeka, Kansas-based Westboro Baptist Church to appear on air with an hour of air time in exchange for not picketing a funeral for victims from the Amish school shooting near Nickel Mines, Pennsylvania. Initially, Gallagher offered the organization money to not picket the funeral. With this gesture being accused of being blood money, the syndicated radio host gave the church an hour to appear on air. The Amish funerals went on peacefully after the contract signed with WBC stipulated a $500,000 fine if there were picketers anywhere near the funerals.[2]
Following plans by the Westboro Baptist Church to protest funerals of victims of the Virginia Tech massacre, Gallagher offered the group three hours of airtime in exchange for an agreement not to protest these funerals. The WBC was the in-studio guests of Gallagher's program for its entirety on April 24, 2007.[3]
 
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