In an 8-1 decition the SCOTUS has ruled that the Westboro Baptists are entitled to "special protection". i really do gotta puke.
Quote:
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.
I really hope the justices didn't use that language (special) in their ruling. That would be a serious perversion of justice and the Bill of Rights.
If they did use the phrase "special protection" and did not clearly and specifically define what that means then they are simply talking out of their collective bung-hole.
While I disagree with what they say and do, and believe that, eventually, karma will result in a catastrophe destroying their fully loaded "church"... The First Amendment does, in fact, require that we put up with even vile, disgusting, and hateful speech. I have not yet read the decision, and wonder whether it allows for "reasonable time, place and manner restrictions" that could be used to keep them "out of sight and out of mind" at these funerals. i.e. they have to be at least one mile down the street in a designated protest area...
That said, “[e]ven protected speech is not equally permissible in all places and at all times.” Id., at 479 (quoting Cornelius v. NAACP Legal Defense & Ed. Fund, Inc., 473 U. S. 788, 799 (1985)). Westboro’s choice of where and when to conduct its picketing is not beyond the Government’s regulatory reach—it is “subject to reasonable time, place, or manner restrictions” that are consistent with the standards announced in this Court’s precedents. Clark v. Community for Creative Non-Violence, 468 U. S. 288, 293 (1984). Maryland now has a law imposing restrictions on funeral picketing, Md. Crim. Law Code Ann. §10–205 (Lexis Supp. 2010), as do 43 other States and the Federal Government. See Brief for American Legion as Amicus Curiae 18–19, n. 2 (listing statutes). To the extent these laws are content neutral, they raise very different questions from the tort verdict at issue in this case. Maryland’s law, however, was not in effect at the time of the events at issue here, so we have no occasion to consider how it might apply to facts such as those before us, or whether it or other similar regulations are constitutional.
So, the Court appears to be saying that, if the statute restricting the time, place and manner of picketing at funerals had been in force, then they may have found differently, if the restrictions were "reasonable".
Last edited by ipscshooter; 03-02-2011 at 08:28 AM.
I didn't read were anyone is given special protection. They are free to sell what they want in this free market and people are free not to buy what they are selling.
That's the kind of world we've established when we threw out what was good for the idea that we are here to make a profit.
The law is further enforce with this ruling proving that before anyone can proceed with becoming absolute a vote on the law is necessary. No worries, people are more than intelligent enough to understand how precious their personal freedom is, after all they are at least 18.
Freedom must be allowed mistakes and many said they understood that. Always had a feeling many did not. This kind of mistake must be allowed and the Justices were right in saying it's not governments business to get involved in what another's opinion is. The whole thing could be taken care of if people just educated themselves.
Where to now that this rulings been handed down? More violence? More anger?Another addition to the constitution? More laws? I know, Muslim Americans will be protesting and proclaiming judgement on infidels. Some one's going to have to save us from all this. Who will it be? A republican again with a "patriot act" on steroids or a dem like FDR? I think they will seem like children compared to who it will be.
Things were more simple when the second was the second and people who felt insulted could challenge the insulter to a duel and settle things. We're civilized now, we go to court and court and court now. The fact it had to go to the SC means the country is filled with demigods who care not for the constitution and in this case the massive amounts of interpretations that say again what was said today by the SC.
Location: land of the Lilliputians, In the state of insanity
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I guess many good intended citizens need to set up counter protests, right in front of the Westboro idiots, screaming at them. Maybe even park a few busses or R.V.s between the idiots and the poor mourners.
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Unintended consequences and God have one thing in common: Liberals don’t believe in either of them.
SCOTUS - Westboro Gets Protection
