Double-edged Sword

This is one of those issues that is a perfect example of “be careful what you wish for”.

This week the U.S. Supreme Court upheld the rights of the members of a Baptist Church in Kansas to protest this country’s involvement in foreign wars by holding rallies at the funerals of fallen U.S. soldiers while spouting what many feel is hate speech.

In essence, the church members rally at these funerals, they say, because soldiers deserve to die since they fight for the U.S. which tolerates homosexuality.

I’m not going to get into what the protestors write on their placards … google “westboro baptist church” and you’ll find all the information you want about these people and the vitriolic things they spout at their protests.

This latest case against the church involves a father burying his son who was killed in Iraq, and had sued the group for invasion of privacy and emotional distress because of the things they were saying outside of his son’s funeral. In lower courts, the father had been awarded almost $11 million in damages, which were later reduced to $5 million.

The church appealed the decision and the case made its way to the Supreme Court, which issued its ruling this week. By an 8-1 vote, the justices wrote that while many would consider the church member’s hate-filled speech abhorrent, they have a right to say what they want in this country because the First Amendment of Constitution protects its freedom of speech.

I was listening to NPR on the way home Wednesday and they interviewed the father of the fallen soldier. You could clearly hear the anger, the hurt, and the shock in his voice. He argued passionately about how disrespectful the protestors are, how (in his opinion) they could make their point somewhere else and don’t have to show up at funerals like this. He also said he couldn’t understand how the court could rule like this.

The point was also made in the NPR piece that many of these protestors are family members and a few of them are lawyers. Because of this, they are keenly aware of the laws governing what they do, are careful to notify police before they show up and adhere to the laws governing the minimum distance they must keep away from the funeral sites. Therefore, they aren’t technically breaking the law when they gather.

For an instant, I was shocked and dismayed that the Supreme Court could do this, could validate what these people say. But, the more I listened the more I realized that, for better or worse, they were right, especially when I read this quote from the decision, authored for the majority by Chief Justice John Roberts:

“Speech is powerful. It can stir people to action, move them to tears of both joy and sorrow, and -- as it did here -- inflict great pain. On the facts before us, we cannot react to that pain by punishing the speaker."

Of course, the ultimate irony here is that our soldiers are fighting and dying and have fought and died while protecting our right to free speech, even the free speech of those like the members of the Westboro Baptist Church.

Like the French philosopher and historian Voltaire once said, “I may not like what you say, but I’ll fight for your right to say it.”