A grieving father won a nearly $11 million verdict Wednesday against a fundamentalist Kansas church that pickets military funerals in the belief that the war in Iraq is a punishment for the nation’s tolerance of homosexuality.
Albert Snyder of York, Pennsylvania, sued the Westboro Baptist Church for unspecified damages after members demonstrated at the March 2006 funeral of his son, Lance Cpl. Matthew Snyder, who was killed in Iraq.
The jury first awarded $2.9 million in compensatory damages. It returned later in the afternoon with its decision to award $6 million in punitive damages for invasion of privacy and $2 million for causing emotional distress.
For homophobes – here is your church!
#30 – So, seems to me this really is an excellent case to evaluate just how free speech “absolutists” anyone thinks they are? Yes, freedom for speech we agree with, hate speech for that we disapprove of.
I’m all for him marching in the streets or publishing a newsletter or buying TV air time and saying what he wants. It’s his life he risks with the incendiary comments he makes. And if violence were brought against him, I’d advocate the prosecution of those who brought it.
I’m drawing a line at the venue. This human filth is verbally assaulting the families of fallen soldiers at their funerals. This simply is not something we can tolerate.
This is about balancing rights. Who here honestly believes these grieving families, whose son’s and daughter’s lives were wasted in vain, do not have the right to bury and grieve without being assaulted by Fred Phelps and his fucked in the head hate parade.
These people have to go to their graves with the last memory of their children’s burial being these slack jawed hicks shouting them down about their bullshit God and sodomy and and how their children are somehow responsible for the fact that crusty old redneck preacher can’t stand the thought of one guy’s cock shoved up another guy’s ass.
These are parents and siblings, aunts, uncles, cousins, and friends… and how on Earth is this right.
This isn’t about speech. Fred Phelps isn’t “speaking”. His just assaulting and bullying innocent victims for no good reason at all. He can die for all I care.
31—OFTLO==I agree with “the spirit” of everything you say.
YOU and I are NOT free speech absolutist, thats all.
Always good to have our values clarified?
Yes, maybe respect for grieving family members at their time and place of symbollic healing/closure IS a higher value than freedom of speech.
Think about it, really!
#28 There was no libel charge in the case, which would have brought the legal framework around libel into play.
#29 I don’t agree that courts are there to take money from people who piss you off and put it into your pocket. They resolve disputes.
Phelps should have been kicked out for tresspassing, and laws have been changed in many states to prohibit his activity. But the idea that the father is entitled to punitively bankrupt Phelps because it’s easy to prove to a jury that he’s an asshole, way out of proportion to any tangible financial loss, makes me nervous. The next time it won’t be a Phelps.
33==Cetainly this case involves “a dispute?”
Hypo–you are at the funeral of your son who died in Iraq serving in the military. Phelps comes by and says he deserved it. Seems to me those are fighting words and a “dispute” has arisen”
Now, in our system, you are not supposed to physically attack anyone in your valid outrage. You are SUPPOSED TO go to court and seek monetary damages instead. That is indeed what the courts are there for in our civilized community.
Unless, you support free speech and all that it directly requires.
These guys came to missouri to protest a military funeral. They were quickly made aware that while they had the right to free speech even if we didnt agree with them. It was advisable that they stfu lest the rednecks and trailer trash of which I am proud to be one, exercise their right to beat the holy spirit out of them. No its not the christian thing to do but the threat of great bodily harm seemed to work quite well. Of course the mention that the last three murders (hogs are amazing animals they eat damn near everything) around here have not yet been solved might have helped
This one really stresses my liberal values — I really really hate what the Phelps’ say but I really really believe in speech.
But, I guess I side with those who argue that funerals are private events where free speech laws don’t apply.
You could further argue that funerals are religious private events, which have particular protected status in our constitution.
I was prepared to argue in favor of the verdict on the assumption there was a valid tort, but because of the dearth of details, I did a little extra reading on the Baltimore Sun website. A couple of things jumped out at me immediately that seem to undermine the verdict. According to defense attorney Jonathan Katz’s court statement, the protest took place 1000 feet away from the Catholic Church where the funeral was held. And even Snyder (the soldier’s father) testified that he didn’t see the protest signs upon either his arrival or his departure from the funeral — he didn’t see them until he watched the news on TV later that day! That gives us a better idea of how little actual intrusion there was.
As reprehensible as those Westboro folks and their message are (and there were only 7 protesting), they seem to have satisfied the basic rules for a religious or political protest. It should be constitutionally protected speech unless it tramples someone else’s overriding rights, which doesn’t seem to have been the case at 1000 feet away. Although I may disagree with the verdict, I still think those Westboro fundies are some of the most hateful, ignorant assholes that walk the earth (dragging their knuckles behind them).
Fred Phelps may have been right when he said of the verdict, “It’s going to be reversed in five minutes.” I just hope he was less accurate when he added that the case “will elevate me to something important,” as it draws more publicity.
Hypo–you are at the funeral of your son who died in Iraq serving in the military. Phelps comes by and says he deserved it. Seems to me those are fighting words and a “dispute” has arisen”
Now, in our system, you are not supposed to physically attack anyone in your valid outrage. You are SUPPOSED TO go to court and seek monetary damages instead.
I agree with you right up to the last line. The father suffered no monetary damages, so I don’t agree that seeking monetary damages is appropriate.
Sorry, I don’t view courts as a place to submit a lottery ticket to a jury to get outrageous “emotional distress” financial awards for intangible damages. Skyrocketing liability insurance costs due to crazy punitive damage awards from juries contribute to the ever-inflating cost of everything.
37–Gary==thanks for digging and posting that up. On your posted facts, sure seems like a bad result to me.
38–Billy Bob==Whether you agree or not, there is a tort of “intentional infliction of emotional distress” wherein intentional also mean wanton disregard and so forth. I can’t think of a better example of such a thing other than invading a private funeral and mouthing off==said facts in line with my hypo but not the Phelps case? And to your point, that is what my last sentence agrees with.
Yes, but that shaky tort has to be weighed against freedom of political speech. I think we’re agreed that on the facts as Gary described them, the tort case is even shakier.
However, I note from Wikipedia…
“The lawsuit also involves accusations made on Phelps’ websites that Mr. and Mrs. Snyder “raised [Matthew] for the devil” and taught him “to defy his Creator, to divorce, and to commit adultery”.”
…which would bring libel back into this. I dunno if that’s $10M worth of libel, but it’s probably worth something.
#32 – YOU and I are NOT free speech absolutist, thats all.
I know you love to argue just to argue, and obviously you are doing that here…
I am a First Amendment absolutist. I can say that because I know the difference between speech, and just blowing hot air out your mouth.
If Fred Phelps and his coven of bitch daughters is marching down the middle of a suburban street at 3AM shouting “God Hates Fags” at the top of his lungs, and is subsequently arrested for violating local noise ordinances, are you really going to argue that his free speech rights were violated?
Phelps wasn’t slapped for what he said. He was slapped for verbally harassing innocent strangers as they grieved for their fallen son.
What Fred Phelps does is not speech any more than shouting obscenities at children in the mall or yelling fire in a theater would be considered “speech”.
Phelps is an asshole leading assholes, BUT.
This is as clear-cut a free speech issue as you’ll ever see. As long as they were on on public property, they have the right to assemble and protest.
This verdict will be overturned on appeal and the complainant won’t see a cent.
The source of the man’s grief is the loss of his son. What Phelps and his people say is not that important by comparison. I’m sure they aggravate it, though. The church should counter-sue.
41–OFTLO==nice mixing and matching==ok—you want to punish not speech you disagree with but rather speech that is “just blowing hot air out your mouth.” Somehow, that gust of hot air is not explicative of your point?
Your other points are equally poorly thought out. Phelps was not yelling at 3AM, he was not yelling fire. Any other bogus analysis you wish to profer?
I smile as I type that “obviously” YOU are not closer to be a free speech advocate/absolutist as I am. The facts as Gary found them make it clear to me Phelps was engaged purely in free speech activities. Vile, disgusting, hateful, religious, nutball==just what an absolutist wants to protect, and so do I. Being only human, it won’t upset me if he gets punished, but I’m honest enough to recognize it is because I disagree with what he said===not his time, place, and manner of saying it.
OFTLO–if I love to argue, you love not to admit you are wrong? Now, reargue your poiint “within” the facts and legal relevancies AND maintain you are still an absolutist?
#44 – I stand by my conviction.
This isn’t speech. This is verbal assault and harassment. This is a religious freak so far to the right that even Pat Robertson wouldn’t want to stand to close to him, going to the funerals of American servicemen and harassing the grieving families. He is directing his “speech” at widows and grief stricken mothers.
I am absolute about speech, and when Fred Phelps wants to exercise his right to free speech, I’ll curse his name, but support that right. This isn’t that. What he is doing is harassment and there are laws that address that.
My points about the street at 3 and the theater are right on target because like what Phelps does, those things are not speech either.
To paraphrase what Barry Goldwater said about Jerry Falwell, “I think every good Christian should give Fred Phelps a good, swift kick in the ass.”
#37 – As reprehensible as those Westboro folks and their message are (and there were only 7 protesting), they seem to have satisfied the basic rules for a religious or political protest.
Except for this… His “speech” is neither religious nor political. It’s commercial. The Westboro Baptist church isn’t a church. It’s a hateful family of fucks that peddle hate to swindle donations from hicks and other slack-jaws.
#45 OFTLO, I disagree that “His ‘speech’ is neither religious nor political.”
It is both, and though it’s wrong as all hell, it also has a Biblical basis. Divine vengeance on groups that include innocent people is one of the Bible’s most frequently recurring themes, and tying the deaths of our soldiers to America’s failure to outlaw homosexuality, especially in the military, makes it political as well.
It may not make much sense to you or me, but little in the realm of religion makes sense to a rational mind. You may even be right that he uses it as a hook for bringing in donations, but I don’t think any of us can really be sure that he doesn’t actually believe it.
#46 – You are right. Religion is full of bullshit that whackos can take to extremes… But this guy isn’t trying to rid the world of fags, which if he were would be reprehensible enough.
Fags are his meal ticket. Fred Phelps loves fags. He needs fags. He’s trying to fill his wallet with hate money from the people in the religious right who are far to the right of those we call The Religious Right. It’s an enterprise.
To the extent that we have free speech, let him protest to the public in public venues in peaceful and organized demonstrations with proper permits. Let him buy TV time or appear as a guest on a public access channel. Let him publish a newsletter…
All these things he does and the only resistance he gets is from counter protestors. His rights are never trampled.
This is where I am drawing the line. It’s speech if I say women in miniskirts are sluts. Its harassment if I go to your house and find your daughter in a miniskirt and yell at her that she is a slut.
This guy crossed that line. We, as civil people, with honest differences, must band together and say, “No… This you may not do. Go hate fags in an appropriate venue… not at these funerals.”
By the way, your daughter has great legs and she’s no slut in my book 🙂
#47 – …now only if she’d let you borrow her skirt.
#48, James,
I thought you borrowed it because it matched your new shoes.
The worst closeted conservative gays are always these kind of folks, the ones who protest the loudest against homosexuality.