As much as I despise what these people do, I hope the Supreme Court sides with them. If the court rules against them, then that's a slippery slope to what other speech gets banned.
It really depends on the line they set.
In this case, a funeral is a solemn event, and normally private. The first amendment does use the word "peaceable" in it. there is no peace in yelling and screaming being directed to the people participating in a solemn event. There is no doubt they are the target of that hate speech.
Protesting at a funeral is not a slippery slope. It's ing disgraceful and disgusting. Supreme court should tell them that, take back the fine the father has to pay them and make a freaken law that specifically tells the idiots of the world not to protest at a goddamn funeral.
For the first time in history I completely agree with you. Living in a free society means you let people like this do this even if you find it revolting.
IIRC, Gregory vs. Chicago basically said that protestors who are acting within their rights are not responsible for the reactions of the bystanders.
That is almost certainly geared toward government or business. Surely picketing a private funeral and a single individual can be differentiated here.
Uh, why? All it takes to shut down free speech is people who can't control themselves? Sorry, I'm not buying that.
If I walk up to a black person and start throwing the N word repeatedly his way, can I successfully sue him when he hits me? No, I cannot, because most courts are going to take my words as hate speech and clearly provocative. How is this any different? Is free speech dead because I can't shout out ethnic slurs at my leisure?
Key phrase - Walk up to.
I'll make sure to drop the N bomb from a block away and hold a sign up about bringing back slavery from a comfortable, legal distance if I ever need to denigrate someone in the future, then.
The law is useless when it becomes codified and enforced in a black and white manner. It hurts people just as much a a slippery slope does. If only people could act on common sense.
The utilitarian solution is vigilante justice for Phelps and his insane daughter. I imagine the net gain of good in the world would outweigh two deaths a thousand-fold.
It is interesting that the father did not see the signs at the funeral, but only later on TV. It does lead me to believe that they stayed the required distance away from the funeral and maybe did not actually "disturb" it in the manner in which it has been portrayed.WASHINGTON — Supreme Court justices expressed empathy Wednesday for a father whose Marine Corps son was killed in Iraq and whose funeral was protested by fundamentalist pastor Fred Phelps and his anti-gay followers.
"This is a case about exploiting a private family's grief," Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg said.
Yet the scope of the justices' questions during the hour-long session revealed the difficulty of the case and the reality that the court's previous rulings on free speech make it hard for individuals to claim they have been harmed by even horrific statements regarding public issues.
Despite their sympathy for the bereaved father, the justices, including Anthony Kennedy, often a key vote, clearly struggled with how to avoid a decision that encroaches on valid, although hateful, protest messages.
Justice Elena Kagan referred to the demonstrators as "taking advantage of a private funeral to express their views," yet noted they apparently adhered to ordinances about keeping their distance from the church. Ginsburg's questions suggested that state and local laws about where protesters may gather might sufficiently protect the sanc y of funerals.
As the justices heard arguments in the overflowing courtroom, the drama continued outside as Phelps' followers, who regularly travel the country to demonstrate at military funerals, protested in front of the marble-columned building.
Wednesday's case arose after Matthew Snyder, a Marine Corps lance corporal, was killed in Iraq in 2006. Fred Phelps and members of the Westboro Baptist Church — who comb media reports nationwide for news of military funerals — saw that Matthew would be memorialized in Westminster, Md. They protested near the Catholic church with signs that read, "Thank God for Dead Soldiers," " Troops" and "Pope in ."...
Justice Stephen Breyer drew out from Summers that Snyder had not seen the offensive signs until after the funeral on a television report...
Free speech groups, such as the American Civil Liberties Union, say Phelps' horrific message is exactly the kind of unpopular, offensive speech the First Amendment was intended to protect...
http://www.usatoday.com/news/washing...r-phelps_N.htm
^^^solid take
Free speech?
How about compelled speech or jail time?
"A Mississippi judge ordered an attorney to spend several hours in jail Wednesday after the attorney chose not to recite the Pledge of Allegiance in court"
http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2010/10/m...eciting-plede/
There's a first amendment issue in both to be sure, but the similarities pretty much stop there. It's not a very good analogy, b_d.
Here's the MIC intimidating, criminalzing anti-MIC dissenters, as Breyer said, criminalizing political speech
http://www.alternet.org/module/printversion/148428
... Aye, but there's the rub. They aren't picketing a single individual. They are picketing the entire country, and they are doing it from public property which just happens to be adjacent to a cemetary where a funeral is happening. Remember, these guys are lawyers, and are very careful not make it a personal attack.
Obama's FBI is persecuting it. Who's antiwar guy, again?With progressive dissent, censored from corporate media, increasingly treated like a crime, it’s time to ask: what is being protected?
You are aware that KKK members and neo-nazis have rallies and protests, generally right across from counter-protests organized by African American groups. Ethnic slurs are tossed back and forth, however the KKK guy could sue anyone who crosses the line (physical line, not metaphorical) and punches him.
(jaw drops further than it has ever dropped before). I honestly don't know how to respond to this other than to say that you are de able. I really hope I am misinterpreting the point of your post.
The FBI, as MIC enforcer, doesn't care if they don't get a conviction of dissenters on trumped up charges of material aid to terrorists. All they need is an example of how they can destroy lives and tear up homes with impunity.
Last edited by boutons_deux; 10-07-2010 at 09:17 AM.
Ok, I am calming down a little bit. I thought you were replying to the thread. Your programming must have read the word "military" and thought that this was a thread about the military.
Interesting. Perhaps he should have sued the networks covering the protest?
Seems like this is a problem with an easy legislative remedy. Governing bodies, most likely state or local, need to establish code or ordinance setting a further legal distance from funerals where protests can take place. Make it 2500 hundred feet from the property line from the premise the funeral is taking place. At a half mile away, no one should be disturbed and these clowns will just look like a bunch of random morons protesting nothing.
As it turns out, it seems the ordinances already do this, if you look a few posts up, the dad admitted to not knowing they were there until after the funeral, when he saw it on the news.
These are horrible people, but they will almost certainly win the SC judgement. I just hope that the SC doesn't uphold the fines to the dad.
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