Image via WikipediaTolerating abhorrent speech is the price of living in a free society | GoUpstate.comAs distasteful as it would be, the Supreme Court should rule in favor of the Kansas family that protests at military funerals. To rule against them would be to start chipping away at freedom of speech.
The Westboro Baptist Church, dominated by the Phelps family, has been spreading its hateful message at the worst possible occasions, the funerals of military personnel killed in Iraq or Afghanistan. They go as far as they can to shock those who see their signs.
Their actions are reprehensible, offensive and divisive. They are mean-spirited and give their own cause a bad name. But what they are doing is protected by the First Amendment of the Constitution.
The church is being sued by Albert Snyder, whose son, a Marine, was killed in a Humvee accident in 2006. The church came to protest at his son’s funeral. He won the suit with a $5 million verdict, which was overturned by a federal appeals court. Arguments in the suit were heard Wednesday by the U.S. Supreme Court.
There couldn’t be a more sympathetic plaintiff asking for limitations on free speech than a father who simply wants to bury his son in peace. In their questioning, some of the justices appeared to be looking for a way to rule in his favor while still upholding free speech, but that option doesn’t seem to exist.
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