What the author feared would happen has indeed occurred!
The Supreme Court of the United States has, by an 8-1 vote, decided that the hateful, anti gay Westboro Baptist Church of Topeka, Kansas, headed by the Reverend Fred Phelps, and consisting of about 50 people, almost all his relatives, have the right to disrupt military funerals of soldiers killed in Iraq or Afghanistan to protest the fact that gays have rights, and that America is going to the devil because gays are allowed to exist in America!
The fact that a military funeral is a time of mourning and stress for those connected to the dead soldier apparently had no effect on the Court, except for Associate Justice Samuel Alito, who, somewhat surprisingly, was the only dissenter.
So the Westboro Baptist Church can continue its evil deeds and disrupt funerals and promote hate, and the right of privacy of funeral attenders, including the family of the deceased, does not matter!
This despicable group not only has done this dastardly deed to families of soldiers, but also were present at the funeral of the nine year old girl murdered when Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords was seriously wounded in Tucson, Arizona in January. The only difference there was that a large group of sympathizers of the parents of the young girl formed a wall of resistance to these characters, and kept them much further away from the funeral procession.
This is not, in the author’s mind, freedom of speech, or freedom of religion, or freedom of assembly. To call the Westboro Baptist Church a church is a mockery of the whole concept of religion!
All decent people will deplore this decision, and be embarrassed that Ruth Bader Ginsberg, Stephen Breyer, Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan joined with Chief Justice John Roberts, Clarence Thomas, Antonin Scalia, and even the ultimate swing vote, Anthony Kennedy, in writing this reprehensible decision!
This is not a victory for free speech, but rather a victory for hate, and insanity, and lack of respect for the dead, and lack of patriotism regarding the military, who sacrifice themselves every day in far off lands!
Surprising, but the author must commend Samuel Alito for having the courage to go against the tide, a man that the author has not highly admired. So I salute Alito for his brave stand for decency!
I am appalled at this disgraceful ruling. My husband and I are both former service members and our son is currently serving in the U. S. Navy. This is not a freedom of speech issue, the issue is that this religious group is infringing on the liberties of families that are all ready in grief. Shame on you all, especially Kagan, Sotomeyer, and Kennedy. Kudos to Justice Alito for standing firm on his position.
You might want to think twice when you agree with Alito and Bill O’Reilly-http://www.towleroad.com/2011/03/oreillykelly.html
I am as liberal as they come and I absolutely hate the Westboro clan and everything they do, but you are mistaken about this.
Censorship is wrong. Period. Having freedom of speech means we sometimes have to allow speech that is abhorrent.
You like that Alito thinks this expression of views goes too far. But what happens when he thinks that the protesters in Madison need to be silenced, or LGBT equal rights protesters don’t deserve freedom of speech? We don’t allow judges to pick and choose who gets 1st Amendment rights and who doesn’t. We ALL have it or we are in danger of losing it.
There is a good reason that 8 Supreme Court Justices, liberal and conservative alike, agreed on this decision. It was the right one.