Westboro Baptist Church got its day in court as The United States Supreme Court listened to oral arguments Wednesday, over its First Amendment Rights challenge. Westboro, represented by the daughter of Westboro Preacher Fred Phelps, believes they have the right to protest at the funerals of fallen American Soldiers, but parents, friends, and family of the fallen soldiers feel harmed by the actions of the protesters and their signs which say things like "God Hates Fags", "God is your Enemy", and "Thank God For Dead Soldiers".
According to Politics Daily
, many lined the streets hoping for a chance to hear the argument today, but also on hand were protesters from both sides. We hope the protesters arguing against Fred Phelps and his congregation outnumbered the "God Hates Fags" protesters. Attending the funeral for a fallen American hero is not an event that should be celebrated with hatred. A young man or woman has given their life for their country and should be treated with the respect he or she has earned.
Even worse, W
estboro takes young children to these protests having them holding these signs, such as the child in the picture to the right. While their parents speak hatred, how can they teach their kids to hate at such an early age, when other children are playing baseball or playing with dolls? These children aren't being allowed to grow up to form their own opinions. They are instead, being brainwashed by their parents to hate, before they even know what they are hating.
Meanwhile, according to The Washington Post, Bikers arrived at Arlington Cemetery to counter the Westboro protesters at the funeral for Lt. Brendan Looney, who was killed serving his country as the result of a helicopter crash in Afghanistan, on September 21. Using their motorcycles, they used the engines of their bikes to drown out the chanting and singing of Phelp's Westboro congregation, who attempted to turn a day of mourning into an even worse event. Video of the bikers can be seen by clicking here. Some of the bikers do say that Westboro has the right to be there. Clyde Fleming, one of the bikers countering the protesters said, "The church "absolutely" had a right to its protest, just as we have a right to block their noise and their rhetoric."
So what do you think? Should the Supreme Court side with Westboro, and allow them to continue to spread the hate and misery? Do they take their First Amendment Rights too far? Chime in and let us know how you feel.
Photo Source -Westboro Baptist Church
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Comments: 98
The 1st Amendment protects the popular and more importantly the unpopular speech.
Hate speech is NOT protected by the First Amendment. Of course, you can say, "I hate you". But carrying signs that say,"God hates fags", could be construed as hate speech.
BTW, God only hates athiests, Baptists, Norwegians, Socialists, and Kartman's neice and nephew.
They circle around the families and rev their bikes at the appropriate times against this bunch of crazies. A good friend of mine is a part of the Freedom Riders.
They are not directing their words to the individuals but to the government entity as a whole.
Funerals arent really private moments while they may be construed as such they are more or less public events.
This country was built on protesting. This is just an unpopular form of it but never the less still protected in our Constitution.
Peter,
Kartman's gald he doesn't have to agree with you. He'd probably have to quit Gather.
If people hold signs stating that God hates a certain group of people, that is hate speech. People can be driven to do terrible things in the name of God. We only have to look at radical Muslims to see the evil things that can be done.
Who they are addressing is debatable, but irrelevant as their message. They have no right to use people's funerals for their own purposes. A funeral is not a public venue for broadcast.
I don't think they would like that.
But I think people should do that to them
Turn about is Fair Play isn't it?
And,while I'm on my soapbox, Jesus is a myth too. He never existed. Sorry.
It may be legal what they do, but it's a "hate" group.
godhatesfags.com
godhatesamerica.com
godhatestheworld.com
"You can extinguish a candle by using your pee-pee as a fire extinguisher." - Kartman at 7 years-old.
I love that the bikers drown these morons out with their engines.
So, if you try it... urine trouble?
It should be in someone's legal will how they want their funeral to be conducted. Kartman would love to see anarchy and mayhem at his funeral. It would make people feel like Kartman was still around.
As a decendent of Vikings, my family would have burned the body of our loved one on a bonfire and then raped and pillaged the Westboro Baptist Church members. But they don't seem to want to mess with the descendents of Vikings too much.
In Kartman's neighborhood, police just leave up the yellow crime scene tape and people figure it out.
But I adore Black Sabbath music ;-)
I say go to the Westboro Church play some Black Sabbath full freeking blast, maybe AC/DC "Highway to Hell".
I can think of a few more.
I wonder if they will hold hands and pray...or will they freek out over the fact that their 'prayer time' was disturbed...uuummm see playing this mind of music is my freedom of speech. And I think THEY should have to Listen to it, just like WE have to listen to thier crappy mouthed chants.
If I'm right about that, all is not lost. There are always people who will 'disappear' 'em for a price.
I am not defending hate speech...but hate speech is protected by our Constitution...with certain specific limitations.... In a 1942 ruling, the Court explained that one of those limitations is "fighting words"...words designed to incite action(s) that would harm. If one group cannot openly express themselves, then no group can.
A very informative essay is HERE :
http://www.garretwilson.com/essays/law/freespeakmind.html
As vile as these people are if we as a country allow their speech to be surpressed than we open the door to supressing a persons right to speak out against other things.
I remember not too many years ago speaking out against the war in Iraq was considered hateful and unpatriotic.
Think about the ramifications of allowing the courts to silence topics because they are out of the norm or in bad taste or unpopular.
"The idea that it's in "bad taste" to disrupt a funeral will not come and go. "
Hopefully it won't come and go Peter...but what is your point? The protesters, the Westboro bigots...observed the 1000 foot distance requirement and broke no laws. The father of the slain solider wasn't even aware of the Westboro presence until he saw the news coverage on TV and later on the Internet.
"The seven picketers stood in a place designated by a priest and by the police, over a thousand feet from the funeral,' the Phelps lawyer said. "They sang songs and waved signs that included the messages: “You’re Going to Hell,” and “Thank God for Dead Soldiers.” The demonstration was neither visible nor audible to those attending the funeral", she said.
If the Phelps lawyer is lying (the lawyer is Phelp's daughter), what she has said could be contested by witnesses and news film. I don't believe this has happened.
“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.”
I remember not too many years ago speaking out against the war in Iraq was considered hateful and unpatriotic.
Where saber-rattling and anti-war fashions may come and go, a funeral will always be a funeral.
If their demonstration wasn't visible nor audible to that the funeral then I don't think it's a big deal at all. It didn't disturb the funeral. They HAVE tried to ruin funerals, before, though, with horrible shouting.
They were horrible at Mathew Shepard's funeral !!!
In society we have to balance everyone's rights. People can exercise free speech in public. Most people would recognize a family's funeral as a private event, not a public one. People should have some expectation of privacy when mourning a loved-one's passing - even in public.
Notwiststanding the aforementioned, the only reason we have free speech in this country is because of the young men like the one who the Snyder's were mourning.
You're implying we have rights that contradict each other. That doesn't make sense.
These idiots were not on property belonging to those who were doing the funeral. If they were, they could be rightfully told to leave that property.
I'd have to think about that one Peter, but either way it doesn't mean that the government can start banning speech that a majority doesn't like.
We DO have noise ordinances and "disturbing the peace" laws. I think a funeral is worthy of "peace".
What planet are you living on? Individual civil rights often conflict and the courts have to try and untangle them.
I have a right to walk down the street with a camera and take pictures. I do not have the right to stop on a public street and try and see if I can see your daughter undressing in her bedroom with my telephoto lens and take pictures of her.
Government cannot create real rights, so any so-called 'rights' they might create could easily conflict/contradict.
In this case the free speech rights of these idiot protestors did not violate anyone else's rights.
No..I didn't make this claim...the Phelps' lawyer did. I relayed her claim.
That's your opinion. Just because the Snyder's attorneys didn't argue the protests violated their clients' right to privacy, doesn't mean an argument can't be made that their privacy was violated.
Libel and slander have nothing to do with privacy NOT Kartman (may I call you NK?) Both are types of defamation..slander for malicious statements...transitory statements... libel for written, broadcast or published words or images. Neither of these types of defamation are applicable if only OPINION is offered.
But the point is that libel and slander have no relationship to issues of privacy.
Slim (may I call you cupcake?) slander and libel are different for private citizens and public figures? Private citizens have an expectation of privacy, where public figures don't. Proving libel or slander against a public figure is much more diffcult - because of no expectation of privacy.
Yes, where the plaintiff in a defamation action is a private citizen who is not in the public eye, the law extends a lesser degree of constitutional protection to defamatory statements. Free speech is unlimited as long as it is opinion only and as long as it is not designed to incite violence...with some restrictions to sexual or violent content.
CupCake?
Yeah I was just passing that on, since IF TRUE it does change things a lot
I do not argue that their free speech rights should be abrogated, but that there is no right to use such words to deliberately cause pain... which one might be able to argue they do.
(wikipedia ..http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freedom_of_speech)
In other words...hurt feelings don't count...the degree to which people may take offense varies, or may be the result of unjustified prejudice. Slander counts...libel counts (defamation) ...but opinion is protected against defamation charges...I believe.
The problem here (or at least one of them) is that Mr. Snyder (the father of the dead soldier) thought it was a big deal, and sued the Phelpses, and was initially awarded damages of over $10 million.
I don't know about you, but if somebody used the courts to try to force me to give them $10 million, I would think that was a pretty big deal.
This is why our system provides Constitutional boundaries.
I think they DID believe they were doing the right thing. Our schools and military just don't teach what the constitution is all about and what it says.
As far as the First Amendment goes, what does it matter, since other provisions of the constitution are so readily ignored, like money, declaration of war, and the qualifications of the president, for instance? At any rate, the First Amendment is limitations on the government about free speech directed against the government, not from non-governmental people talking crap to each other. The constitution(s) is/are chains to shackle government, not the People (and IMO, when a person is acting in government, he/she is not one of the People).
Because he was serving this countries military and therefore when sent to any country or serving here within our borders, he is still serving this country by following the orders he is given. He chose to join the military and to follow the orders he was given regardless of where he was sent. Just because someone doesn't agree with the war or the current (or past) government, doesn't make his service, or his sacrifice, any less.