Patters

1st Amendment protects military funeral protesters - Yahoo! News

WASHINGTON – The Supreme Court ruled Wednesday that the First Amendment protects 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 of Topeka, Kan. 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.

PatriotsReign

They'll be protected by law (sadly), but who's going to protect them from the vast majority of US citizens? Particularly, those who are mourning their fallen hero's....

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Patters

They are protected by our laws. In fact, when they protested gay marriage in Cambridge, the 20 or so members of that nutty church were protected by probably 25 cops in full riot gear.

sdaniels7114

We got people working to make the ERA part of the Constitution, to make English the national language, and a bunch of others.

Isn't anyone working to add the words "except at funerals." To the First?

Seems like a worthy pursuit for our elected officials.

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Give a man a gun and he can rob a bank, give a man a bank and he can rob everyone.

STFarmy

It's absolutely true. Free speech isn't stuff that we want to hear or like hearing. If that was the case, we wouldn't need laws about it, because no one would care. These creeps (the "church" people, not the SCJs haha) know the law, and they do their best to make sure that they follow it while they get out their rotten message. I get the outrage, but free speech is free speech. We can't disallow it because the majority of us find it disrespectful and despicable. There's a number of free speech ways to counter them: ignore it, yell over it, or post a blog mocking them (legally). This is our responsibility in a nation that values free speech.

Mrs.PatsFanInVa

The trouble with exceptions is that once you make one everyone else expects one.

Do you really want to open that door and give credit to the eventual downfall of free speech
to a small bunch of nutwad fruitcakes like the Westboro Baptist Church?

sdaniels7114

That's fine, they can expect all they want. Its not like its easy to pass an amendment. 2/3'rds of Congress plus 3/4's of all state legislatures have to agree IIRC*. Just because Jet fans would like it to be illegal for someone to call them doofuses doesn't mean anyone would ever bother going through that lengthy process. I do think people would be willing to do it to stop the Westboro people.


*I just looked it up. My Civics teacher would be proud to know I got it right

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Give a man a gun and he can rob a bank, give a man a bank and he can rob everyone.

Harry Boy

From Harry's News Service
Freedom Gone Crazy

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Harry Boy (Genius)

In The Absence Of Law And Order Society Will Surely Destroy Itself

Stokes

Should have been 9-0. I'll be interested to read Alito's dissent.

Protecting controversial free speech is a cornerstone of our democracy, even if we think the speakers are abhorrent.

Harry Boy

Another Court Decision:
Court says Illinois student has right to wear anti-gay shirt

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Harry Boy (Genius)

In The Absence Of Law And Order Society Will Surely Destroy Itself