Supreme Court Upholds Right to Picket Military Funerals

Correctly.  Snyder v. Phelps

Comments

[larry kurtz]

You say it best when you say it the least, Doc.

[Jimi]

So who exactly is surprised by this? and Why?

[larry kurtz]

Let's not kill this thread it's too important. So, what if we look at Sam's statement:

"Alito countered that church members have countless ways to express their belief that the deaths of U.S. soldiers are God's way of punishing the nation for its tolerance of homosexuality. "It does not follow, however, that they may intentionally inflict severe emotional injury on private persons at a time of intense emotional sensitivity by launching vicious verbal attacks that make no contribution to public debate," Alito wrote."

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=134207581

The Court left open other avenues for lawsuits, right, Ken?

[BillW]

In a rare incidence of agreement between us, Larry, that's the way i read it too.

[KB]

Larry: I thought you wanted me to say least? As long as the Phelpsians scrupulously obey the laws and as long as they do not specifically slander the soldiers whose funerals they picket, I think they are immune from lawsuits.

I am going to try to read through the case in the next couple of days and perhaps comment in more detail. I have given Alito's dissent a good look. It's pretty good but not, ultimately, convincing.

[William]

If politically motivated by offensive, emotionally injurious speech is not protected, it would be less than a decade before a gay person claimed severe emotional distress from a Sarah Palin speech, a member of NARAL felt violated by a pro-life (or, in her mind, anti-woman) speech and filed suit, or Al Gore sued someone for denying global warming and leading to the imminent harm of us all.

Appointing a censor is never a good idea for someone who disagrees with the "progressive" elite.

Instead, look on the bright side: If such vile and hateful “political speech,” however broadly construed, is protected (and the case turned on the political nature of the speech), doesn’t that clear the way for a major assault on the campus “speech codes” and, indeed, the very notion of “hate speech”?

It seems to me the Court just handed conservatives & libertarians a major victory, if only we know what to do with it.