WASHINGTON (ABP) — The U.S. Supreme Court has decided to wade into what is expected to be one of the most-watched cases in the court's 2010-2011 term — whether the privacy rights of grieving families trump the free-speech rights of a controversial Baptist church infamous for picketing military funerals to protest society's growing acceptance of homosexuality.
The high court announced March 8 it would review a lower-court decision voiding a $5 million judgment against members of Westboro Baptist Church in Topeka, Kan., a small, independent Baptist congregation notorious for picketing military funerals with signs like "Thank God for dead soldiers."
The group first achieved national prominence by protesting the 1998 funeral of Matthew Shepard, a gay University of Wyoming student tortured and murdered in what many view as a hate crime.
In 2005 the church, comprised mostly of extended family members of Pastor Fred Phelps, expanded its fire-and-brimstone message to declare that America's war casualties were evidence of God's wrath against the country for its toleration of homosexuality, including the military's "don't ask, don't tell" policy regarding gays.
In 2007 a Maryland jury awarded $10 million in compensatory and punitive damages for intrusion upon seclusion, intentional infliction of emotional distress and civil conspiracy to Albert Snyder of York, Pa., father of Lance Cpl. Matthew Snyder, a 20-year-old Marine killed in Iraq. A judge later reduced the amount of damages to $5 million.
Snyder had sued Phelps and other members of the Westboro church after they showed up outside his son's funeral at a Catholic church in Westminster, Md., in March 2006. The protestors stood in a designated area not within direct view of the church holding placards bearing messages such as "America is Doomed," "Pope in Hell," "Fag Troops," "Thank God for IEDs," "Priests Rape Boys" and "God Hates Fags." Snyder did not learn of their presence until seeing news reports of the event that evening.
Last September, a federal appeals court threw out the judgment against the church members, ruling that while "distasteful and repugnant," the signs were protected as free speech by the Constitution.
By agreeing to review the decision favoring the church members by the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, the high court sparked debate about what are proper limits of free speech guaranteed by the First Amendment.
The Supreme Court said justices would answer three constitutional questions:
— Whether a 1988 decision involving Hustler Magazine and Baptist preacher Jerry Falwell that a public figure cannot recover damages for infliction of emotional distress as result of a parody applies to private citizens.
— Whether the First Amendment's freedom of speech tenet protecting the protesters' rights trumps guarantees of freedom of religion and peaceful assembly extended to mourners at a funeral service.
— Whether an individual attending a funeral service of a family member constitutes a "captive audience" entitled to state protection from unwanted communication.
In striking down the original verdict the appeals court said language used by the protesters was "imaginative and hyperbolic rhetoric intended to spark debate" that could not be interpreted as "objectively verifiable facts" about Snyder or his son.
Even an article on a Westboro Baptist Church website that the father had taught his son to be an "idolater" by raising him as a Catholic, the judges ruled, was not a subject of "purely private concern," but rather an issue "of social, political or other interest to the community."
Paraphrasing a ruling in another case invoking the First Amendment, the appeals court said judges defending the Constitution "must sometimes share their foxhole with scoundrels of every sort, but to abandon the post because of the poor company is to sell freedom cheaply."
After the decision, Snyder told a Baltimore radio station he disagreed with the ruling and intended to appeal.
"I'm all for freedom of speech," Snyder told WBAL radio. "Don't get me wrong, but a funeral is not the place for it. Go to a park. Go to the White House. Go anywhere."
Snyder said his son, like the rest of the soldiers targeted for protest, had nothing to do with determining the military's policies concerning homosexuality.
Bob Allen is senior writer for Associated Baptist Press.