Posted on 03/02/2011 8:32:21 AM PST by InvisibleChurch
WASHINGTON -- The Supreme Court ruled Wednesday that the free speech provisions of the U.S. Constitution protect fundamentalist church members who mount anti-gay protests outside military funerals, despite the pain they cause grieving families.
The court voted 8-1 in favor of the Westboro Baptist Church. The decision upheld an appeals court ruling that threw out a $5 million judgment to the father of a dead Marine who sued church members after they picketed his son's funeral.
Chief Justice John Roberts wrote the opinion for the court. Justice Samuel Alito dissented.
(Excerpt) Read more at theindychannel.com ...
The church is very wrong, but the decision is legally correct
Were I a prosecutor, I would sorta make it known that I considered the protests to be conduct that would provoke a reasonable person to commit a battery on the protestors....
I’m with you.
You don’t think that the picketing infringes on another’s rights?
It’s a very correct decision. Who was the dissent? Scalia?
Never mind. Alito.
From Wikipedia:
The fighting words doctrine, in United States constitutional law, is a limitation to freedom of speech as protected by the First Amendment to the United States Constitution. In its 9-0 decision, Chaplinsky v. New Hampshire (1942), the U.S. Supreme Court established the doctrine and held that “insulting or ‘fighting words,’ those that by their very utterance inflict injury or tend to incite an immediate breach of the peace” are among the “well-defined and narrowly limited classes of speech [that] the prevention and punishment of...have never been thought to raise any constitutional problem.”
I believe that ending a funeral protest by physical force should be punishable by a fine up to $10.
What right is that?
The SCOTUS has ruled repeatedly that these powers are not restrained by many of the provisions of the Bill of Rights, e.g. the ability to raise an army by coercion using conscription.
Hate to say it, too, but the ruling is right. They are just not.
so the court essentially says we can joke at airports,, make assassination jokes, etc now,,,, If its ok to dance and celebrate in front of the parents at their childs funeral. Anyone can say anything, anywhere, anytime,,,
And I wonder if they maintained their prohibition of groups demonstrating on the steps of the spend court? You already know the answer,,,
You can mail it in.
Sadly, I believe you are right, MindBender.
Alito was the lone dissent...
nice idea,,, ten bucks!
Indiana Code 35-42-2-3. Provocation.
A person who recklessly, knowingly, or intentionally engages in conduct that is likely to provoke a reasonable man to commit battery commits provocation, a Class C infraction.
A class C Infraction is the same as a speeding ticket; $500 maximum fine, not subject to any jail time.
This is absolute garbage.
The soldier’s family had won the support of 42 senators and 48 states for its case at the lower court level.
The SC argument on behalf of the “church” was made by an attorney who is the daughter of one of the church’s elders.
There is no possible way a decision against this horrifying and disrespectful harrassment at funerals could ever have been—in theory or practice—construed as “shredding the First Amendment”.
There are hundreds of venues in America through which this church or any other can exercise free speech and proselytize or proclaim their views. They don’t need to torture American families to do it.
Turning a private funeral for a U.S. serviceman killed in action defending the U.S. into a public event or vehicle which somehow has attached to it a “constitutional” responsibility to guarantee “freedom of speech” to anyone who wishes to disrupt it, is tantamount to authorizing and condoning oral vandalism and graffiti wherever and whenever it spontaneously appears.
The SC is now dedicated to convolution of the law and “sticking it” to middle America and anyone else who does not share or will not tolerate elitist values and principles which are at the heart of the left’s continuing attack upon American society from within.
Aaarrrggghhhhhh...
What a wicked “church” this is...but I agree the court made the correct decision.
Sadly, most of us agree with you Mindbender. Generally the people who only want their 'friends' to have free speech - are liberals. And none of us want to stand with them... That said, I understand where Alito was coming from... The Westboro folks are as close to evil as I'd ever want to encounter...
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