The U.S. Supreme Court will hear oral arguments today in a contentious legal battle that will pit the privacy rights of grieving families against the free speech rights of demonstrators.
Members of the Westboro Baptist Church in Topeka, Kansas have been on a multi-year rampage, believing it is their God given mission and their God given right to protest at the funerals of fallen military soldiers. In 2006, members of the church stood within 300 feet of a funeral for Lance Cpl. Matthew Snyder in Westminster, Maryland, carrying signs that read “God hates you” and “Thank God for Dead Soldiers.” And on a recent Saturday afternoon, mourners of slain Army Lt. Todd Weaver, including his wife and 1-year-old daughter, were forced to drive past scores of flag-waving protesters holding attention grabbing signs that read: “God Hates Fags” and “You’re Going to Hell.”
According to the teachings of the fundamentalist church, which is led by controversial pastor Fred Phelps, is the belief that the deaths of U.S. soldiers is God’s punishment for “the sin of homosexuality.” But their belief is flawed in that most of the funerals they’ve chosen to protest against were of soldiers who were not gay. Still, Phelps and his church members have not been deterred in their mission and pledge to strongly defend their First Amendment right to protest.
For most ordinary people, the very idea of protesting at any funeral — let alone one for a member of the military — is sacrilegious. Yet Westboro Church members proudly boast that they and their children have held more than 44,000 pickets at funerals and other events. “This case is about a little church in Topeka, Kansas, engaging in public speech on a public right-of-way, about issues of vital public interest and importance,” said Margie Phelps, the attorney who wrote and will argue the case before the justices. She also happens to be the daughter of church founder and pastor Fred Phelps.
Westboro’s website says the legal dispute is about the “sovereignty of the Living God” and that those who fail to live up to God’s standards should be punished. Phelps explains that the decision to picket funerals “is to use an available public platform, when the living contemplate death, to deliver the message that there is a consequence for sin” (According to them, that sin is homosexuality and all government policies that support homosexuals). But opponents of the funeral protests call the acts immoral and inhuman attacks against innocent families during their lowest moment of grief, and is therefore deserving of regulation. Opposing attorneys will argue that although the U.S. constitution allows for freedom of speech, that right does not extend without boundaries. For example, no one may stand in a hospital zone at 3am with a bullhorn and utilize their freedom of speech with loud shouts of protest. Attorneys will likely use existing laws against disturbing the peace to convince justices that funeral protests should be permanently outlawed.
