You, me, and every other political dissident.
Let’s be clear about this: Fred Phelps and his whole family are scum. They should get cancer and die.
The Westboro people brought their circus to Montpelier a couple of years ago and I think the people of my town, particularly the high school students, handled it very well. In other words, treating them with the ridicule they deserve.
Still, they were right in the Supreme Court, and the Supreme Court was right in ruling in their favor.
You know the facts, so I won’t spend a lot of time on them. To gain publicity for their vile ideas, these people go to events, like military funerals, and hold up their vicious signs, and they hope they will either get on TV or provoke some kind of reaction from the sane people in attendance, who are justifiably offended by their odious display. When they did it at the funeral of Matthew Snyder his family sued them and got a judgment for five million dollars.
Now the Supreme Court has overturned the judgment, holding that their actions are protected by the First Amendment. The legal questions in this case were so easy that even Scalia and Clarence Thomas got them right.
You don’t have to like it, but here’s the thing about the First Amendment: we don’t need it to protect our right to say things that don’t bother anybody. We don’t need it except when we’re pissing people off.
And if you’re reading this, odds are that you find that you need to say things that piss people off.
What the Supreme Court said today is that you can piss people off and the government isn’t allowed to stop you.
We all need that.
Adding that Alito’s dissent was stupid. I have every right to say that.
Are personal bullying and harassment completely beyond the scope of law? Because one could certainly argue that that is what the Westboro Church is engaging in. It’s one thing to demonstrate during a conventional public event; but aren’t family funerals inherently personal and therefore private? So, by extension, all of the hateful things that are being said are being directed at a private individual or individuals. How does deliberately seeking out a family in mourning at a graveside differ in any way from stalking? I’m just asking because I honestly don’t know.
This was an event in a public place.
Also, as the Court points out, the statements these Christians are making are inherently public, relating to their warped religious and political views.
In a sense of tastefulness you probably could have ended it before that line.
is an anti-nuclear activist that organizes mass demonstrations. She is baffled by US law that allows Westboro or the KKK to mass in public. I told her that those guys are covered by the same civil rights that allow for mass demos against nuclear weapons makers. She said, ‘But they are completely different!’ I said, ‘Not at all. If we ban Westboro, then someone would move to ban us.’
Either all of us can engage in mass protests, or none of us do.
The best response to crazies like the KKK or Westboro is total ridicule, just as Jack says in his post.
I remember back in the ’90s, when I was still living in NYC, the KKK held a rally. NYC has a law that no more than three people can be in one group with masks on. This law dates to the Irish riots of the 1800s. The KKK challenged that law – and lost. So only about a half a dozen Klansmen were brave enough to hold a rally without their hoods on. There were over 200 New Yorkers shouting them down the entire time. They ended their rally early because it was so pointless.
What we can do is form a silent barrier between the church members and the funeral, bear witness as my Quaker friends would say — allowing the funeral to proceed in peace and celebrating the Bill of Rights and the US Constitution.
for better or worse leaves ample room to one to be an asshole to their fellow human. And it appears that we’ve also extended those rights to corporations now too…
Just wait for Fred Phelps Inc.
You can’t shout if down.
You can’t give it the death sentence or even life in prison if it kills someone.
And it has more right to give $$ than you or I.
More human than the human.
How did we get here.
What have we done.