Did anti-gay church have rights violated? [ACLU Goes to Bat For Phelps]

Chicago Sun Times ^ | Oct. 6, 2006 | Dave McKinney

[Alouette]

SPRINGFIELD -- It's not a threat to sue. Yet. The American Civil Liberties Union has launched a broad inquiry into how Illinois is enforcing a new state law designed to keep picketers affiliated with a radical Kansas church from disrupting military funerals.

The ACLU has sent Freedom of Information Act requests to the offices of Lt. Gov. Pat Quinn and several suburban and Downstate mayors and police chiefs to see how members of Westboro Baptist Church were dealt with and whether their free-speech rights were infringed upon.

In Illinois in the last five months, church members have shown up at seven funerals for soldiers killed in the line of duty, carrying signs that said, "Thank God for dead soldiers," and, "God hates fags."

[Professor Kill]

In this instance, these lawyers and judges "invented" a way to set strict limits on how the government can regulate your speech.

I can't speak for you, but that's a pretty good thing in my book.

[Ancesthntr]

In this instance, these lawyers and judges "invented" a way to set strict limits on how the government can regulate your speech.

That's a double-edged sword: if the gov't cannot prohibit you from making vile, hateful, objectionable speech like the members of the "church" in question do, then it frees them to make this kind of statement and victimize innocents...and further restricts the legal rights of those innocents to any kind of recourse.

[Hacksaw]

In this instance, these lawyers and judges "invented" a way to set strict limits on how the government can regulate your speech. I can't speak for you, but that's a pretty good thing in my book.

I think you need to mention that the "speech" in question was the disruption of a funeral. It was a ridiculous decision.

[Professor Kill]

Freedom of speech is *always* a "double-edged sword".

There is absolutely no need to protect popular, inoffensive speech. The First Amendment is meant to protect unpopular speech that the majority (or a powerful minority) does not wish to hear. That includes Phelps' vile, hateful, and objectionable speech.

Do you want the government to have more power to regulate unpopular speech?

[Professor Kill]

I think you need to mention that the "speech" in question was the disruption of a funeral. It was a ridiculous decision.

No, sir, that is not what the statute in question regulates. If protesters disrupt a funeral, there are existing laws to punish them. This statute seeks to limit speech that the funeral attendees and the general public consider (rightfully) offensive. Because the statute was too broad in its construction, the judge (correctly, in my opinion) held it to be unconstitutional.

When regulations like this are allowed, what do you think protects you if you wish to express a very unpopular opinion?