Religious wingnuts...
Alex Romero
These scum go to funerals and badger grieving families of Gay soldiers! and they got sued, and now have to pay $11 million...can we sue Brent now?
http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/Supreme_Court/supreme-court-weigh-fred-phelps-military-funeral-protests/story?id=10043999
Military Funeral Protestor Asks High Court to Protect His First Amendment Rights
Pastor Claims God Punishes the Military for Homosexual Tolerance
March 8, 2010
The U.S. Supreme Court said today it will decide whether Kansas pastor Fred W. Phelps has a First Amendment right to travel the country and picket and protest at the funerals of fallen servicemen.
Phelps, who says God is allowing soldiers to die in Iraq and Afghanistan because the military permits gays and lesbians to serve, has appeared at several funerals with members of his congregation holding signs with messages such as, "You're in hell" and "God hates you."
The suit was originally brought by Albert Snyder, whose son, Lance Cpl. Matthew Snyder, was killed in 2006 in Iraq. Snyder sued Phelps and his congregation claiming that their protest at his son's private funeral was an invasion of the family's privacy and inflicted emotional distress.
The district court eventually awarded Snyder a judgment of $5 million.
But a federal appeals court threw out the judgment, finding that the protest signs weren't aimed at Snyder specifically and said the statements are "protected by the Constitution" because they contained "imaginative and hyperbolic rhetoric" meant to spark debate.
"We are constrained to agree that these signs are entitled to First Amendment protection," the three judge panel wrote.
Margie J. Phelps, the daughter of pastor Phelps, who serves as the counsel of record for Westboro Baptist Church in Topeka, said the Supreme Court's decision to hear the case will provide an "excellent platform for the words that we've faithfully delivered to the nation for 20 years."
She said the church, consisting mostly of extended family members, has attended more than 600 random funerals of soldiers because members of the congregation are trying to get out the message that if the military stops accepting homosexuals, soldiers will stop dying.
"The issue about these dead soldiers," Margie Phelps said, "is an issue of acute public importance."
Craig Trebilcock, a lawyer for Albert Snyder, said his client was devastated that the members of the church invaded his privacy.
"Mr. Snyder felt that he had one opportunity, a few hours to say goodbye to his son and they were torn away from him," Trebilcock said. "He can't think about his son's passing and can't get closure because every time he thinks of his son's death and his funeral, he sees the Phelps family carrying a sign saying, "You're in hell."
Trebilcock said he hopes the court will look at the case as a balancing test and rule in favor of Snyder's claim of the right to peaceful and religious assembly.
"We don't believe there is an unlimited First Amendment right to engage in outrageous conduct intended to inflict harm on a private person," Trebilcock said.
The court will hear oral arguments in the case next term, which begins in October.
doug f
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Elephants feel the fatal footfalls of poachers a hundred miles off. Cats exit the room when oysters are opened. On and on, and on and on. The unseen exists and has properties." - Richard Ford-"The Lay of the Land"
Alex Romero
There is no point in demonstration, if the end result will be the same...shout all you want...Homosexuals are here to stay!
Kyle Curtis
Dad of a fallen Marine perseveres against protests at military funerals
Washington – A father of a Marine killed in Iraq says he won't pay the legal fees of a protest group who picketed at his son's funeral in 2006 – at least not until he hears from the US Supreme Court on the matter.
Albert Snyder, whose son, Lance Cpl. Matthew Snyder, was killed in Iraq, learned Friday that a federal appeals court is requiring him to pay more than $16,000 in legal fees to the Westboro Baptist Church, aChristian fundamentalist group that demonstrates during military funerals to gain attention for its antigovernment, antihomosexual message. The group rallied at Matthew Snyder’s funeral in March 2006 in Westminster, Md., chanting antigay slogans and carrying signs such as “Thank God for dead soldiers,” says Albert Snyder’s attorney, Sean Summers.
The group was protesting about 30 feet from the church’s main entrance, and Mr. Snyder had to enter through a separate entrance, Mr. Summers says.
Snyder subsequently sued the Westboro group for emotional distressand won a $5 million judgment. But on appeal, the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals reversed, finding in favor of protecting the protesters' free-speech rights. About three weeks ago, the Supreme Court agreed to take the case and is expected to hear it in the fall. (Last year, the high court had declined to take up the issue.) Meanwhile, the circuit court has ordered Snyder, a salesman, to pay the church’s court expenses.
Snyder, of York, Pa., told Fox News on Tuesday that he would not pay the Westboro Baptist Church "until I hear from the Supreme Court."
“It’s fair to say that they are not getting any Christmas cards from Mr. Snyder,” adds Summers, in a phone interview. “He obviously thinks they are despicable and doesn’t understand why they would target him.”
The Westboro group has been protesting at military members’ funerals for years. The church leader, Fred Phelps, preaches that American deaths in Iraq and Afghanistan are punishment for the nation’s tolerance of homosexuality. (He was among those banned from Britain last year for fostering hatred or extremism.) The protests have nothing to do with the fallen service members' sexual orientation, and the church says its protests are held within a “lawful distance” of the funerals.
Ultimately, say some, the church protests are a matter of constitutionally protected free speech.
“I really don’t see that [the protest] was a violation of the First Amendment [principles]. It was a violation of decorum and good taste and all sorts of other things, but not a violation of the First Amendment,” saysCharles Gittins, a civilian lawyer in Virginia.
But Summers argues that his client’s right to peaceful assembly and freedom of religion were infringed by the protests and that, unlike at a public park where people are free to express themselves, a funeral setting draws a “captive audience” that requires attendees to be in a particular location – they can’t simply walk away.
Westboro Baptist Church, which is based in Kansas, plans to protest in Florida on Wednesday, outside a funeral for a Marine killed in Helmand Province in southern Afghanistan on March 22.
“Military funerals have become pagan orgies of idolatrous blasphemy, where they pray to the dunghill gods of Sodom and play taps to a fallen fool,” states a press release posted on the church’s website, announcing the rally at a memorial service for Lance Cpl. Justin Wilson. At the bottom of the press release are printed the words “Thank God for IEDs,” referring to the roadside bombs that have killed thousands of troops in both wars.
If you band together and make signs and shout, the gay people will do what?...disappear?
There is no point in demonstration, if the end result will be the same...shout all you want...Homosexuals are here to stay!