POLITICAL LIBERALS and conservatives, as well as US veterans’ groups, have reacted with dismay to a Supreme Court ruling late on Wednesday which protects the right of a tiny, family-run fundamentalist church to picket the funerals of US soldiers with offensive slogans.
The Senate Democratic majority leader Harry Reid called the ruling “unfortunate” and asked religious leaders “to stand with me to denounce hate speech, including the kind used by these protesters”.
Sarah Palin — the right-wing siren who would on most issues be opposed to Senator Reid — criticised the ruling in a tweet, saying: “Common sense & decency absent as wacko ‘church’ allowed hate msgs spewed _at_ soldiers’ funerals but we can’t invoke God’s name in public square.”
The eight-to-one ruling itself spanned the ideological divide on the Court, with liberal and conservative justices voting in the name of freedom of speech to uphold an Appeals Court decision that sided with Fred Phelps, the founder of the Westboro Baptist Church of Topeka Kansas, and against the family of Lance Corporal Matthew Snyder, a US Marine who was killed in Iraq in 2006.
Mr Phelps believes that America’s misfortunes are caused by God’s anger at US tolerance for homosexuality. “God Hates Fags”, “Thank God for Dead Soldiers” and “America is Doomed”, said placards carried outside the funeral.
Jimmie L Foster, the national commander of the American Legion, said that while his group appreciated the “sanctity of freedom of speech” it was “very disappointed that any American would believe it appropriate to express such sentiments... especially at the funeral of an American hero...”
Richard Eubank, the National Commander of the Veterans of Foreign Wars, said “The right to free speech does not trump a faimily’s right to mourn in private.” The ruling has exacerbated tensions, with both the Westboro Baptist Church and counter-protest groups who have sprung up to shield mourners at funerals saying they will step up their activities.
Margie Phelps represented her father in the Supreme Court case. She welcomed the ruling as “providential” and said: “Our pickets will increase. The opinion is 10 times better than I ever imagined ... This case gives this little church an international megaphone.”
Albert Snyder, the father of the Marine whose funeral was picketed, said, “My first thought was: eight justices don’t have the common sense God gave a goat ... We found out today we can no longer bury our dead in this country with dignity.”
A Baltimore jury had convicted Mr Phelps of intentional infliction of emotional distress, intrusion upon seclusion and civil conspiracy. Mr Snyder was awarded $5 million, but that was overturned by the US Court of Appeals in Richmond on First Amendment grounds.
“Speech is powerful,” chief justice John Roberts wrote in upholding the Appeals Court decision. “It can stir people to action, move them to tears of both joy and sorrow, and — as it did here — inflict great pain.” But, Justice Roberts continued: “We cannot react to that pain by punishing the speaker.”
However upsetting or contemptuous the views expressed by Westboro, “the issues they highlight — the political and moral conduct of the United States and its citizens, the fate of our nation, homosexuality in the military and scandals involving the Catholic clergy — are matters of public import,” he wrote. Justice Samuel Alito delivered the sole dissenting opinion, writing that “Our profound national commitment to free and open debate is not a licence for the vicious verbal assault that occurred in this case.”