Westboro Baptist's Funeral Protests Put Free Speech to Test
Saturday 02 October 2010
by: Michael Doyle
WASHINGTON — The most vexing free speech fight in years confronts the Supreme Court on Wednesday, pitting a loud-mouthed, anti-gay Kansas church against a grieving Pennsylvania father.
The father, Albert Snyder, has already won the popular vote hands-down. Forty-eight states support him. So do 42 senators and all the major veterans' organizations.
The constitutional tally, though, isn't nearly so simple.
"The government may not curtail speech simply because the speaker's message may be offensive to his audience," University of Missouri Law School Professor Christina Wells noted in a legal filing.
In Snyder v. Phelps, justices will decide whether to protect speech that Wells characterized as "provocative, offensive and disrespectful." Wells acknowledged it might even be considered "contemptible."
For all the pain they may have caused, however the public rants against homosexuality by the Westboro Baptist Church of Topeka, Kan., might just be found to be protected by the First Amendment.
"This is obviously an emotion-laden case," said Steven R. Shapiro, legal director of the American Civil Liberties Union, but "the First Amendment was designed to protect unpopular speech against (the majority's) distaste. At the end of the day I think that's where the Supreme Court ends up."
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http://www.truth-out.org/westboro-baptists-funeral-protests-put-free-speech-test63810