Trust me, guys, it frosts my cookies in a bad way that these clowns are going to call themselves "legitimized" by this decision; LCPL Snyder's funeral was here at St. John's in Westminster, and it took everything in my power to keep from acting stupid around those people. Fortunately, the Patriot Guard were there, and this community rallied around the Snyder family, and did what they could to protect them from the WBC short of violating anyone's - even those people's - Constitutional Rights.

The problem with many people when it comes to an issue like this, they let emotions and empathy/sympathy interfere with rational judgement regarding constitutional rights of those they disagree with.The Westboro protesters are nutjobs and are beyond wrong in what they do, however even they have the right to protest.A decision against them would have had ramifications far beyond just protests at funerals and could be cited as legal cause to supress political speech against those in power etc one day.Supreme Court decisions have consequences that affect the country for many years, this decision was a victory for EVERYONE's constitutional rights.

As much as I hate WBC and what they do, this decision was the right one.

Free speech rights are not in place to protect popular speech, because it needs no such protection. Free speech protects the people's rights to say unpopular things.

(But WBC is still a bunch of...)


:salute: Thank you, sir.

They're jackasses, but they have the right to be. And no one has the right not to be offended. But they're still jackasses. :-?

Yeah. These guys are terrible human beings, but our rights extend to terrible human beings as well.

Allow me to join the chorus or praise for you. You do a great service to the fallen, and we thank you for it.

Yep they do, it sucks in some regard, I despise them but if their rights can be trampled on bc most people dislike the message, anyone's can, including yours or mine.

I was in Carlsbad, CA, I think it was, a few weeks ago, walking into a Denny's with my wife, when I observed a Rider sitting on his machine in the parking lot, just getting ready to leave. I was, oh, maybe sixty, seventy feet away, but I stopped and sketched a quick salute his way before walking in. I was reminded of how grateful I am for these guys when he threw a quick wave back, acknowledging my thanks.

So, yeah. The chorus is loud, and it ought to be. For every one who proffers hate like WBC, there will be one thousand or more of us standing in opposition.
:salute:

Well said.

If this occurred at a funeral I attended, there would be real trouble.

Oh, and by the way, I completely disagree with the decision. We all know Free speech has limits. This is beyond stupid.

The limits on Free Speech fall into two categories in US law: unprotected speech and time, place, and manner restrictions. Time, place, and manner restrictions were imposed by the state and were obeyed by the demonstrators, so those limits aren't at issue. Could the demonstration have been unprotected speech? No. The old "hate speech" argument doesn't work, because it doesn't have any real meaning beyond something that offends the listener. If that were the rule, there would be no 1st Amendment at all. There are very specific categories of unprotected speech and the court is not going to create any new ones. If the speech doesn't fit into one of those categories, it's protected. And political speech--as this was--is the category of speech that receives the highest protection.

These guys are the lowest form of life on the planet, but as far as the law goes, this wasn't even close.