Once again America is the laughing stock of the world, with an amazing supreme court backing for hate to be unleashed at a time of hardship for many!
The UD Supreme Court ruled Wednesday that a grieving father's pain over mocking protests at his Marine son's funeral must yield to First Amendment protections for free speech. In other words the hateful Westboro Baptist Church are allowed to protest their anti gay slander and incitement to violence at funerals of US soldiers, with legal impunity and backing.
In the strange yet not unpredictable move, all but one justice sided with a fundamentalist church that has stirred outrage with their many raucous and venomous demonstrations, claiming God is punishing the military for the USA’s tolerance of gays.
The 8-1 decision went in favour of the Westboro Baptist Church of Topeka, and was the latest in a string of court rulings which chief Justice John Roberts mentioned in his opinion for the court, protects "even hurtful speech on public issues to ensure that we do not stifle public debate."
This decision ended a lawsuit by Albert Snyder, who sued church members for the emotional pain they caused by showing up at his son Matthew's funeral. Just as they did at hundreds of other funerals, the pure evil Westboro members held signs with messages designed to provoke, anger and confront, like "Thank God for dead soldiers," `'You're Going to Hell," `'God Hates the USA/Thank God for 9/11," and one that combined the U.S. Marine Corps motto, Semper Fi, with a slur against gay men.
Justice Samuel Alito, was the lone ranger in terms of this ruling, he said, Snyder only wanted to "bury his son in peace." Instead, Alito said, the protesters "brutally attacked" Matthew Snyder to attract public attention. "Our profound national commitment to free and open debate is not a license for the vicious verbal assault that occurred in this case,"
It seems that in America your freedom to cause distress, anger, immense hurt at peoples funerals is worth more in law that their right to peaceful, private mourning, free from prejudiced and hate.
What’s it like growing up in the Westboro Baptist Church
Zach Phelps-Roper has been going to protests his entire life.
He says his mother and church spokeswoman, Shirley Phelps-Roper, used to wheel him around in a stroller at pickets before he could walk and he began to hold signs when he was three or four.
He protested at the Snyder funeral when he was "14 or 15," but doesn't remember much about it, besides windy weather.
He's been to a lot of soldiers' funerals, he said.
Phelps-Roper also attended the Supreme Court arguments in October. "It was amazing," he said of the media attention. But today's decision was "awesome."
Read more The Huffington Post.
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