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| Westboro protest in suburban Hyattsville, Maryland Photo Courtesy of CNN |
"Speech is powerful. It can stir people to action, move them to tears of both joy and sorrow, and– as it did here– inflict great pain," Chief Justice John Roberts wrote. "On the facts before us, we cannot react to that pain by punishing the speaker."
Associate Justice Samuel Alito was the lone dissenting vote.
The case that touched off the issue and this ruling began when a father of U. S. Marine, Matthew Snyder, who was killed in combat in Iraq in 2006, sued Westboro, saying those protests amounted to targeted harassment and an intentional infliction of emotional distress on the families of deceased servicemembers.
Select members from the church decided to protest outside the Westminster, Maryland, church where Snyder's funeral was being held. Fred Phelps and other family members who make up most of the Westboro Baptist Church have picketed numerous U. S. military funerals to draw attention to their view that U.S. causalities in the wars in both Afghanistan and Iraq, are "God's punishment for the nation's tolerance of fags," according to church spokesperson Shirley Phelps-Roper.
Westboro pickets display signs saying "Thank God for dead soldiers," "You're Going to Hell," "God Hates the USA/Thank God for 9/11," as well as signs with slurs against Gays.
Albert Snyder won $11 million during that first trial, later reduced by a judge to $5 million which the church appealed.
The decision this morning by the Supreme Court upholds the ruling by the federal appellate court in Richmond, Virginia, which threw out the $5 million judgment saying said the Constitution shielded the church members from liability.
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2 comments:
I'm not totally clear on this: is this a test of 'free speech', or of 'religious rights', my confusion coming from the fact that the church was doing the talking.
If it is free speech that won, then doesn't that open the door to anyone and everyone speaking freely at any and every 'event' conducted by the Westboro Baptist Church? You know, everywhere they go, every service they hold, their houses, stores they visit, and so on?
I'm likewise a little perplexed and not just by the message that emanates from the WBC, but also from the US Supreme Court.
If the people of the USA do not, through their Congress, the Constitution, and its Amendments, allow for the demands of respect and decency in their right to free speech, then the Supreme Court's findings may well be in accord with the law in this case.
However, the Court will have also missed an opportunity to send a message to Congress and thus the people, that some consideration should be given to evolving the First Amendment to limit the right to freely preach and incite hatred to the detriment of the mourning and memory of the dead, not to mention the religious zeal to denigrate other human beings according to their interpretation of their chosen scripture.
In fact there is abundant room to limit free speech to truth, and provable facts, and yet still protect freedom of opinion with discreet constraints on how beliefs are expressed.
By its decision, without announcing its own frustration or discontent, the Supreme Court has lowered the standard of public discourse to the lowest common denominator, which the WBC seems to be particularly adept in using.
It is also the separation of church and state which is at risk here, alongside the freedom of responsible expression of opinion.
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