One Angry Nation

DrFoeHammer here, expressing her extreme disappointment in our Supreme Court for their 8-1 verdict a year ago this week in favor of overturning the lower court's findings in the Snyder v Phelps case.

You remember that one, I'm sure. It was also commonly referred to as the Marine Lance Corporal Snyder vs the Woodsboro Whackjobs in re: funeral picketing case.

By way of a brief refresher, LCpl Snyder was KIA in Iraq, and died honorably defending this great country. His parents planned his funeral at their Catholic Church in Maryland. The Woodsboro Whackjobs, based in Kansas, traveled to Maryland and proceeded to share their vile rhetoric on how God hates soldiers, fags, and the US of A. They gathered about 1000ft from the church the day of the funeral, displaying their signs and placards, including this one, "God Almighty killed Lance Cpl. Snyder. He died in shame, not honor--for a fag nation cursed by God ... . Now in Hell--sine die." They also published an 'epic' on their website, describing LCpl Snyder and his parents as evil for 'raising their son to serve the devil,' promoting pedophilia by priests, and then sending him to fight in an evil war waged by the 'United States of Sodom.' They implied that LCpl Snyder was homosexual (he wasn't), and that his parents were evil 'fag lovers,' among other charming sentiments.

Here's where it gets interesting. Maryland's court system, using a jury of our peers, decided that this was so vile, and so injurious, and SO DELIBERATE an attempt to viciously wound and humiliate the Snyder family, that it was not protected speech as defined by our First Amendment. This jury awarded the Snyder family in the neighborhood of $12 million dollars, effectively stating to the world that the Woodsboro Whackjobs should take their bullshit elsewhere. They appealed. The appellate court said, you are still Whackjobs who shall take your bullshit elsewhere, but we'll reduce the sentence to $5 million because yeah, that's a lot of money.

THE SUPREME COURT OVERTURNED THESE DECISIONS. Eight to one. The dissenting opinion is my favorite guy, Samuel Alito. The sensible Justice Alito said, "Our profound national commitment to free and open debate is not a license for the vicious verbal assault that occurred in this case." He went on to write, "[they] may express their views in terms that are "uninhibited," "vehement," and "caustic" but it does not follow 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."

Justice Alito then explains that the Westboro Church has protested over 600 funerals, including those of firefighters, policemen, military personnel, and even a nine-year-old girl who was killed in the recent Tuscan shooting spree that nearly killed Congressman Gabby Giffords. (*note, they cancelled that protest after much publicity and pressure, which only succeeded in garnering even more publicity - ironic, eh?). Alito states his conviction that by overturning this decision, the Westboro Whackjobs will only be emboldened to continue to spew their hatred into the world - and to add insult to injury, this decision will also embolden other would-be whackjobs to try similar stunts in the future.

Since this decision, the Whackjobs have been very busy. I am not surprised.

You can read the full SCOTUS opinion here: caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/scripts/getcase.pl?court=US&vol=000&invol=09-751

In case I haven't been clear enough, I think this is a huge mistake - and a disgrace to the family of LCpl Snyder and at least 600 others.

What say you?