The Right To Hate

Declaring that "we cannot react to that pain by punishing the speaker" Chief Justice John Roberts and the Supreme Court voted 8-1 in favor of allowing the controversial Westboro Baptist Church of Fred Phelps fame protest allowing gays in the military by picketing military funerals.

The justices, by an 8-1 vote, said Wednesday that members of Westboro Baptist Church had a right to promote what they call a broad-based message on public matters such as wars. The father of a fallen Marine had sued the small church, saying those protests amounted to targeted harassment and an intentional infliction of emotional distress.

"Speech is powerful. It can stir people to action, move them to tears of both joy and sorrow, and -- as it did here -- inflict great pain. On the facts before us, we cannot react to that pain by punishing the speaker," Chief Justice John Roberts wrote for the majority.

At issue was a delicate test between the privacy rights of grieving families and the free speech rights of demonstrators, however disturbing and provocative their message. Several states have attempted to impose specific limits on when and where the church members can protest.

The church, led by pastor Fred Phelps, believes God is punishing the United States for "the sin of homosexuality" through events including soldiers' deaths. Members have traveled the country shouting at grieving families at funerals and displaying such signs as "Thank God for dead soldiers," "God blew up the troops" and "AIDS cures fags."

As such, the ruling voids a lower court settlement that awarded the family of Lance Cpl. Matthew Snyder, who successfully sued Westboro Baptist for picketing their son's funeral in 2006.   The lone dissenting vote:  Justice Alito.

He said the church's "outrageous conduct caused petitioner great injury, and the court now compounds that injury by depriving petitioner of a judgment that acknowledges the wrong he suffered," he said. "In order to have a society in which public issues can be openly and vigorously debated, it is not necessary to allow the brutalization of innocent victims like petitioner."

Personally I can see Alito's point, but I would have voted with the majority in a heartbeat.  As repugnant as Westboro is, the second you criminalize opinion, this country's 230 plus year experiment in representative democracy is over, permanently.

SCOTUS did the right thing here, even when Westboro Baptist clearly didn't.