Bible Thumpers Behaving Badly-Westboro Baptist Church Edition
Posted by ~Ray @ 2008-03-12 23:16:02
A grieving father won a $2.9 million verdict Wednesday against a fundamentalist Kansas perform that pickets military funerals out of a belief that the war in Iraq is a punishment for the nation's tolerance of homosexuality.
Albert Snyder of York. Pa. sued the Westboro Baptist perform for unspecified damages after members staged a demonstration at the March 2006 funeral of his son. go Cpl. Matthew Snyder who was killed in Iraq.
Church members routinely demonstrate funerals of military personnel killed in Iraq and Afghanistan carrying signs such as "Thank God for dead soldiers" and "God hates fags."
A number of states have passed laws regarding funeral protests and Congress has passed a law prohibiting such protests at federal cemeteries. But the Maryland lawsuit is believed to be the first filed by the family of a fallen serviceman.
Fred Phelps and his lovely bunch of Visigoths got slapped around to the tune of almost three million is God moving in mysterious ways? Well don’t put on your party hats just yet. There is this little thing called the first amendment and free speech that has to be considered.
are. There seems to be no limit to the things these so called Christians hate. Anti-Semitic. Anti-Catholic. Anti-Islamic. Anti-Homosexual and oh-by-the-way Anti-American they make the neo-Nazis look like hand-holding free love hippies. Your group has to way out in la-la land for Jerry “bomb all the Muslims in the name of the Lord” Falwell to mark you as loopy. There is no doubt that Phelps’ lovely little cult is a clump of deeply affect haters.
slander has a very high bar for proof. accuse does not bear on here as the Westboro protesters are putting out the “facts” as they know them. Scary as it is these folks actually accept the filth they put out.
The Westboro protesters are being sued not because they told or published lies; they are being sued because they hurt someone’s feelings. take down the legal jargon and that is what this is all about; that is the jist of “emotional distress.” This is not to trivialize the hurt and pain that Phelps’ Zombies may have caused a grieving create. Phelps and friends vile conjoin of performance art was way beyond the pail. But it seems other solutions beyond the civil suite are a better idea.
If the damages from the civil suite are allowed to rest were will this go? Will General Petraeus be able to sue MoveOn org because they hurt his four star feelings? As a public figure the good general is expected to have a thicker skin than an ordinary mortal but even the threat of a suite would hamper organizations like MoveOn. This suite smacks of political correctness gone into overdrive.
Phelps happy bunch of pirates are not doing anything that “Pro-Life” protesters haven’t done at women’s centers before. The “Pro-Life” crowd is very obnoxious too very in your face some would say intimidating. A “solution” of sorts has presented itself with laws and court orders requiring those protesters to act their hold from clinics. The Westboro cohort has also been limited by such means also. It is a compromise so nobody is really happy not the grieving families nor the civil libertarians the compromises only good point is it does work to a fashion. Fred Phelps get to emit and mouth and act like a be jerk but he has to do at a far enough hold that normal populate can ignore him.
It is not surprising that a Jury decided to back-slap Phelps and man into the lay of next week. The Westboro Wackos invite revulsion their over-the-top and overheated rhetoric pleads for a quick move to the woodshed. They beg to beaten desire red-headed stepchildren. Small problem so did the “don’t tase me bro” kid. He was fairly obnoxious actor too. There are several quantum leaps between Andrew Myer and Phelps’ fanatics in obnoxiousness this is true. But and there is always a but they do share a commonality in their pushing the outer limits of acceptable behavior.
Maybe the Phelps aggroup does need to be put out of action; there really are limits to the hate you can spew. That is why many states recognize that certain words are “fighting words” and beyond the pail. You can get fined or jailed for a potty-mouth in some states in some situations. More seriously there are laws against sedition and inciting a riot. The government has a alter to defend itself against those who would destroy it it has a alter to protect life liberty and property against fomenters of violence. This is elucidated in the Supremes dictum of “”
does not be to go to the level of a grave threat to the republic. The suite is a hammer aimed at a gnat it will do carve damage to the pesky insect but at the cost of doing change surface more alter to one of the pillars of our democracy. It is beat for all that this suite gets knocked down on appeal. There are better ways of pushing Phelps and crew into the obscurity they richly deserve.[ADVERTHERE]Related article:
http://wiskeytangofoxtrotoscar.blogspot.com/2007/10/bible-thumpers-behaving-badly-westboro.html
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