I don’t think I share your concerns Les.  I think the Jury acted fairly based on their instructions.  Your website is not imposed on anyone.  The Westboro nuts actively impose their disrespect on private individuals.  It’s one thing to hate homosexuality, a country that allows it, and a military tht fights for it, but it seems like a different ball game to to make an individual soldier the symbol and reason for one’s hate.  They can protest at the Capitol and Pentagon and military bases, but I really do think its a despicable invasion of privacy to protest a lone soldier’s funeral.  The soldier isn’t the problem, the system is the problem and the Westboro protestors are not making that distinction.  If they’re going to protest they need to protest groups and systems not individuals.

I think the case is based on the idea that a funeral is a reasonably private affair. Simply saying ugly things in public isn’t enough to warrant a lawsuit, but going to someone’s funeral and intentionally causing emotional distress to the family is quite different.

I agree the implications are troubling, though. I sure hope those judges put a stop on possible slippery slopes.

Les if what these douchebags were doing did not infringe the law in some way, your country’s legal system would be written garbage.

SEB isn’t following people around to private family affairs and getting in their faces.  No one is forced to read what is here.  What Fred Phelps does is different - he cannot be ignored.

Even if an appeals court oveturns the decision later, today is a good day for reasonable people everywhere.
I think the only people not offended by the ongoing actions of the Westboro Baptist Church’s members are the members of said church and a few other obscure nuts.
My level of disgust related to this matter was high to say the least.  I have been waiting for some dead meambers f the W.B.C. to turn up when someone finally snapped.
I salute every member of that jury for standing up for what we all know to be just and right.

I salute every member of that jury for standing up for what we all know to be just and right.

Except what I KNOW to be just and right is free speech and the freedom to say what you like because words don’t mean shit until they cause specific harm.

I think it’s an ass decision. I think it’s counter to the Constitution. I might think Phelps is a douchebag, but I’m pretty damned protective of my right to call Phelps a douchebag even if I decided to find him at dinner and it upset his feelings.

It’s a tyranny of the majority decision, for exactly the reason you put forth: “We all know.” The laws protecting people’s rights about free speech aren’t there to protect the people that everyone agrees with and no one is upset about. They’re there to protect the people that absolutely no one agrees with. That’s often not pleasant, but it’s a keystone of our legal system.

Our laws are only egalitarian as long as they act to uphold the rights of every single person - no matter what people think about that person, no matter how bad everyone thinks the person is, no matter how easy it would be to yield to the larger voice of society as a whole.

Hi, all!  I’ve been reading SEB for quite some time, but never really had anything of real substance to add (I also had an account at one time, and made a short comment here and there, but can’t for the life of me remember what it was so I made a new one).  Anyhoo....

Religious belief is constitutionally protected but religious activities are not.  For example, people can’t refuse to educate their children, just because that’s their religion (though they’re free to believe one should not do that); nor can they refuse to pay taxes based upon their religious objection against war (the opposition is protected, but the action is not). 

While the Supreme Court has found that “religious beliefs can be accommodated” (US v Lee, 455 US 252) it has also found that religious claims are not protected when they are “so bizarre, so clearly nonreligious in motivation, as not to be entitled to protection under the Free Exercise Clause.” (Thomas v. Review Bd. of Indiana Employment Security Div., 450 U.S. 707.) I suspect this case would fall into the latter category as a matter of public policy.

That of course leaves the question of free speech, which has already been answered by the jury when they used the “reasonable person” standard to determine their verdict.

I do however wonder how in the world the father expects to get $11 million from a bunch of redneck Xian hate-mongers who probably don’t even work for a living, since they stay pretty busy protesting on average 3 funerals a week nationwide.  I’d guess they’re living off the government teet, and if I’m right, that means our tax dollars are supporting their exploits.  That pisses me off.

I for one am completely glad somebody has finally beat the Westboro idiots at their own game.  For a while they ran around foisting frivolous lawsuits everywhere.  They deserve to pay dearly for the pain they have inflicted on grieving families.

As for free speech - what they are doing is not free speech, it’s disgusting.  They have freedom to believe all they like and protest all they like - but not when it infringes on the right of some poor grieving parent to respectfully bury their child.

To Appallacian Lady: they have plenty of money.

MisterMook, there is a huge difference between telling someone they’re a douchebag and getting some buddies to hold up signs and let people know why your stiff corpse is the scum of the earth for doing something you didn’t necessarily agree with or intend to do.  My suspicion is that a lot of these soldiers probably did plenty of gay bashing in the armed forces and would choose, if they had the power, to restrict the rights and privileges of gay people more so than they are now.  Phelps is an extraspecial breed of idiot that is not expressing free speech.  Phelps’s fist is smashing into people’s noses and he’s gotten away with it for too long.

To Appallacian Lady: they have plenty of money.

In that case, let the seizures, garnishments, and attachments begin! 

According to CNN:

U.S. District Judge Richard Bennett noted the size of the award for compensating damages “far exceeds the net worth of the defendants,” according to financial statements filed with the court.

The compensatory damages portion of the judgment is $2.9 million.  So I’d bet these people have far less than you seem to believe, since judges usually don’t make statements like that.

Of course, it’s also possible that they committed perjury by lying on their sworn financial statements ... but such rabid Xians would never do that, would they?  LOL

Something I found disturbing is that, in a Reuters article released shortly after the verdict, the soldier was stated to be gay.  However, the soldier was straight, and they were picketing because they believe soldiers dying is punishment against America for tolerating homosexuality.  Nevertheless, that shows just how convoluted something like this can become due to the involvement of that hate group, since they always carry their “god hates fags” signs. 

They’re therefore really lucky you can’t commit libel or slander against a dead person.

I agree with Les here in that this case scares me a little too. A lot of our court system is based off of precedent. Meaning current court cases affect future cases. So a ruling against free speech could in fact be used as precedent in another free speech case down the road.

That said, I do feel that funerals are regarded as private events, so there is no right to protest on the funeral grounds. If the morons at Westboro want to protest they should be forced to stay outside of the funeral grounds. And I do think they should have the right to protest, just not on the private grounds of the funeral.

Personally I am against most forms of squashing free speech, because then it becomes harder to tell who the true fucking idiots are. 

It’s a disturbing ruling, and one that’s going to raise a lot of questions about freedom of speech and assembly.

I feel a lot of Americans feel that the only definition of ‘free speech’ means the right to say what they like whenever they like, regardless of any circumstance.  I know many are going to reply of course it does.

1) The Declaration of Independence is wrong in fact

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal,

All Men are not created equal- the strong and the clever will always dominate the weak and stupid.  Being born a ‘Bush’ gives you a straight advantage over being born a ‘Jenkins’.

they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights,

Glossing over the Creator bit, the rights you have are only those prescribed by physics- the right to be attracted by a mass, the right for you to be stationary until acted on by a force (Chemistry is reliant on physics, biology on chemistry).

‘Rights’ do not exist.  A ‘right’ is what those in power (not society) allows you to do.  You can have your own arguments as to where power vests in the West.

No one on this board has ever (to my knowledge) defended the ABSOLUTE right of free speech

You can’t yell fire in a crowded theatre

We accept limitations on our actions, as we accept our ‘rights’ are given on the understanding there are also ‘responsibilities’- an equally nebulous concept. Would anyone claim incitement to commit a crime as a ‘right’?  We accept limits on our rights, what we are arguing is where those limits are.

Fred “Is he a repressed homosexual?” Phelps is allowed to make his points.  No one will stop him marching down the road, advertising on TV, handing out leaflets. HE HAS THE RIGHT TO FREE SPEECH.  What ‘we’ as a society (ok- ‘you’ as Columbines) have to decide, is does he have the right to exercise that anywhere and at anytime, regardless of other people?  Does he have the right to do it at 2am outside your house with a 500 watt PA system?

While the constitution protects us from our government its application in personal tort law isn’t so absolute. There is already precedent about invasion of privacy especially if the plaintiff isn’t a celebrity or public figure so this wouldn’t be setting anything new. What we say in person or on blogs may be slander or libel but is not invasion of privacy by any definition. I think that a reasonable person would expect privacy at a family funeral.

Personally I am against most forms of squashing free speech, because then it becomes harder to tell who the true fucking idiots are.

In the main, I agree with those advocating free speech over the dubious “privacy” of the public street outside a church.  That *is* a disturbing precedent.  What if we wanted to picket SBC with “God hates haters” signs or something?  Could we be successfully sued?

Yet there is one dimension to this that I don’t think anyone has explored.  Namely that the Bush Regime won’t allow coffins being unloaded to be shown--i.e. effectively marking the affair as “private”.  In the spirit of “thieves for their pilfering have authority when judges steal,” I suppose that the Snyders ~could~ make the case that the entire death-to-grave sequence is not for public consumption. 

Anyhoo, that’s my tuppence-worth.  Now to polish off that first coffee in hopes of coherence later in the day…

As for free speech - what they are doing is not free speech, it’s disgusting.

Which is exactly the attitude that Les (and others here, and I) worry about in connection to this. Because some people would say the very same thing about this blog, or mine, or a variety of other topic treatments.

While I agree with the jury that there was an intentional infliction of emotional distress and the actions were outrageous to most people—I am much happier that this was a civil case than a criminal one.  Though, to be sure, the chilling effect of large jury awards can be nearly as intimidating as criminal prosecution, I certainly wouldn’t want the basis for this award to be the same as the basis for criminal cases, i.e., gravely upsetting people from a thousand feet away.

You can glaze over the reduction in every single person’s rights that this case establishes precedent all you like because Phelps is a douchebag, but the fact that this is a civil case isn’t a magic wand that makes it better. All it means is that by following this sort of censorship to its conclusion you’re going to have people with money (or large groups, or opportunist lawyers with wealthy targets) able to bring cases against people that are douchebags and shut them up by making them bankrupt.

That’s especially troubling for political protests or religious expression or any number of things that all sorts of people can often get plenty offended about, that any number of perfectly normal wrong-minded people can find disgusting. How would any of you feel if someone used this sort of method to silence a pro-homosexuality, gay-awareness rally? What about pro-choice? What happens when the NAACP decides to crack down on white supremacists by bankrupting them? What happens when the white supremacists fight back by claiming that the entire civil rights agenda is offensive to them?

I’m not saying that anyone would actually win these suits, but now a judge can’t simply throw them out because they’re protected speech. He’s got a precedent that says “you can offend someone so much they’re due damages.” Where’s that threshold? Is it solely due to mourning families of dead soldiers? Obviously those aren’t the only people who can be horrifically offended, so no. So you let these suits pass, and then just like in every other civil trial you’re looking at a case of “who can bleed money to make their case the longest?” versus “how much possible compensation can I take a chunk out of this entity with money for?”

I’ve got zero sympathy for Phelps. This jury award isn’t a good thing though. Maybe not soon, but when Phelps is nothing but a bad memory some astute lawyer is going to lean on this case to silence someone or some entity whose offensiveness is less in question. Or maybe it won’t be, but it will still be in advancement of censorship.

Hmm, this just got me thinking. For those that blog and are worried about lawsuits down the road, all you have to do is start an LLC and put the website under the LLC. Then open a bank account for the LLC and put in the minimum amount. If a lawsuit rolls around, all they can sue you for is what is in the bank account. And because it’s an LLC, they can only sue the company and not the individual.

The problem is, as I see it, that although we have, on paper, the right to freedom of speech, in actuality we don’t, and never have - In other words we can expect a backlash if certain words are used in certain contexts.

The whole movement of ‘Politically Correct’ is an abrigement of freedom of speech, and as LH pointed out, you can’t yell ‘fire’ in a theater. Look also at the Dixie Chicks and the mob-rule type backlash against them for expressing their opinion about Dubya, or the Beatles just for making the comment ‘We might just be more polular than Jesus. The censorship of movies, burning/banning of books etc. provide more evidence against the percieved 100% freedom of speech.

At the core of this issue is not the illusory freedom itself, but is just how much censorship is too much, and where to place the boundries or checks-and-balances to assure that the restrictions never get out of control.

Censorship is overzealously applied in fundamentalist Islamic countries, and was in Nazi Germany. These can be used as counterexamples to what we want to achieve.

When two ‘rights’ conflict, a decision has to be made as to which takes precedence in this situation, a problem that evolves to a tyrrany if the ruling that was meant for a specific case becomes applied, without appropriate modifiers, to all situations involving a conflict of those two ‘inalienable’ rights

Yall are really paranoid (conspiracy theorist level paranoia) if you think a blog where a bunch of atheists get together and Christian bash weekly getting shutdown is going to be the ultimate outcome of the Phelps case.

You are missing the point. We are not afraid of getting shut down, but getting sued. One is much more devastating than the other.

The problem is, as I see it, that although we have, on paper, the right to freedom of speech, in actuality we don’t, and never have - In other words we can expect a backlash if certain words are used in certain contexts.

There are really three levels of freedom—or, conversely, three areas of censorship:  criminal, civil, and social.

The First Amendment protects primarily against the first, because that’s what the Founders thought (rightly) was the greatest threat to political freedom—the government preventing free speech that criticized the government. The right is not absolutely in place (between the usual shouting fire exception and claims of national security, there are limits of various sorts), but by and large it’s pretty broadly accepted.

That carries over somewhat to a civil setting, but there are are added areas of restriction, of competing individual rights—your speech might violate my privacy, or malign my character, or cause me other harms, in which case I can sue.  Your speech may violate a contract I have with you, in which case ditto.  These cases are also bound around with laws, and they can have a chilling effect, but they don’t represent the direct power of the state restricting speech.

The last is the case of social censorship, which the law can’t touch for fairly obvious reasons.  That’s the “I don’t like what you said, so I’m going to socially punish you by not inviting you to my party, not buying your album, not voting for you, not donating to your cause,” etc.  That’s also called the marketplace of the ideas, and while we may roll our eyes at some applications of it, it’s still largely a matter of folks expressing their opinions, subjective judgments that can cut both ways (Joe-Bob hates the Dixie Chicks and joins in the boycott, but protests the boycotting of Billy-Bob Smith who sings about blowing away towel-heads, etc.).

This latter censorship is not really an “abridgment of freedom of speech,” except, ultimately, in a social fashion.  And since most of us have opinions that we find repugnant, we vote with our ears and our eyes and our pocketbooks not to support them.  E.g., I don’t plan on sending any donations to the Westboro Baptist Church any time soon, and if there were an organized boycott of same, I’d support it—but that’s not abridging Fred Phelps’ speech, any more than boycotting purchases of Dixie Chicks CDs is abridging theirs.

I don’t have time to address all the comments at the moment as dinner is ready, but I wanted to comment on something that Webs said earlier:

That said, I do feel that funerals are regarded as private events, so there is no right to protest on the funeral grounds. If the morons at Westboro want to protest they should be forced to stay outside of the funeral grounds. And I do think they should have the right to protest, just not on the private grounds of the funeral.

The Westboro folks weren’t ever on the funeral grounds and, in fact, Snyder never saw their protest at the time it took place. From the news article:

Three adults and four children picketed the March 10, 2006, funeral at St. John Roman Catholic Church in Westminster. Westboro members insisted that their demonstration, about 1,000 feet from the Catholic church, took place legally.
...
Snyder testified that he never saw the content of the signs as he entered and left St. John’s on the day of his son’s funeral. He read the signs for the first time during television news reports later that day.

That’s the rub for me on this one. These idiots weren’t standing on the curb at the entrance shouting at the Snyder family as they drove into the church as some folks seem to be assuming they were. The Snyders didn’t even see them until much later in the day and that was in news reports.

Les wrote:

Three adults and four children picketed the March 10, 2006, funeral at St. John Roman Catholic Church in Westminster. Westboro members insisted that their demonstration, about 1,000 feet from the Catholic church, took place legally.
...
Snyder testified that he never saw the content of the signs as he entered and left St. John’s on the day of his son’s funeral. He read the signs for the first time during television news reports later that day.

That is indeed a very different scenario than that which I had been led to believe had happened, based on other news reports. Thank you for posting that, Les.

Given this information, this might very well be a free speech case which will be overturned on appeal (assuming the defendants file an appeal).

Webs wrote:

A lot of our court system is based off of precedent. Meaning current court cases affect future cases. So a ruling against free speech could in fact be used as precedent in another free speech case down the road. 

You are of course correct, but it’s not considered binding precedent unless the verdict is upheld on final appeal.  Therefore, at this point, this case cannot be used as precedent with regard to any other case.

MisterMook, I think you are forgetting that rights must always be balanced against the needs of society. The reason we can’t yell “fire!” in a crowded theater is because of exactly that. In the olden days, disagreements were settled by duels, but that “right” was taken away at the whim of a society who found it objectionable. Duels were private affairs, but I’m sure you don’t mind their absence.

The Phelps clan were clearly in the wrong, whether the eyes of the law recognize it or not. The only thing that has saved them from being sued before now is the fact that they are very good at hiding behind laws - and might I remind you that, according to the Phelps’, “God Hates America”, so they are hiding behind laws they don’t even believe in.

This has not nearly the impact on Free Speech some people here think it does. Free Speech still very clearly covers honest opinion, reporting of facts, satire, and other such things. Free Speech never covered libel and slander (which are dishonest attacks on character) and being a public nuisance. What this judgment shows is that what the Phelps clan did is not covered under Free Speech (which it should not be), not that calling someone a moron for having a stupid belief isn’t. They aren’t even in the same field.