A question re Westboro Baptist funeral "demonstrations."

[Demoiselle]

I understand, theoretically, anyway, the "free speech" argument that defends these people.
Is it possible that the right to privacy can override the free speech argument?
People burying their loved ones are not engaging in public activity. They're not holding parades. Funerals are private events, aren't they?
So how can we justify the intrusion of total strangers into such an event? The spaces the Westboro demonstrators occupy are intentionally close to the funeral so they can make their point.

I would accept an argument of privacy against people demonstrating for the end of the war (ANY war) as well, if they were cruel enough to use a soldier's funeral as a stepping off point.

Anyway...what do you think? How valuable is privacy? Is it a valid argument against Westboro's behavior?

[SargeUNN]

1. just another case

of trying to take rights and stretching them to an unreasonable limit. Hitler and Mussolini used this tactic to delute the meaning of good laws so they could reduce them enough to get rid of them.

[texastoast]

2. Sadly, I think that the soldiers' family might have a remedy

In a restraining order. I don't know the state laws, but it would seem reasonable that a judge might permanently enjoin the nutters. I'm not sure that it would work, because, theoretically, an order would have to be amended to include each new affected family. Maybe some compassionate attorney from the area could look into whether there is a vehicle available of which the families could avail themselves.

[11 Bravo]

3. If "justifiable homicide" is a valid legal construct, than why not "justifiable assault"?

Rightly or wrongly, if those shitstains showed up at the funeral of a loved one, either I, or the WBC member closest to me in age and size, would be going home with at least a bloody nose.

[Posteritatis]

5. "justifiable homicide" isn't "he needed killing," it's usually self defense.

"Justifiable assault" falls under the exact same category, short of the fuzzy and shifting interpretation of fighting words.

[Posteritatis]

4. It isn't, really

Funerals are nominally private, but that doesn't prevent anyone from demonstrating (or whatever else) across the street from the cemetery, which is the usual practice for these guys. They generally try to get as close as they can get while still being legally alright.

[Vincardog]

6. Their right to free speech does not preclude anyone else from suing them. The Government is forbade

from making laws that abridge their FS right. Everyone who sees them has the same right to get in their face and call them dirt bags.

[Tesha]

7. Was this funeral private?

Did the military provide an honor guard, a gun salute, a flag?
I'll be they did.

And the protesters were 1,000 feet away (off in a sort of
"Free Speech Zone"); apparently, they were never even seen
by the plaintiff; he heard about them later.

Frankly, I think the Court is busy figuring out a rationale
for supporting Westborough; I can't see how they can
decide otherwise without impinging on the rights of,
for example, Republicans and Fox Noise.

Tesha

[Pavulon]

8. I am very surprised someone has not laid waste to these people..

I support their first amendment rights but would not feel to bad if someone drove a truck bomb into their "church".

They are asking for it and eventually are going to get it.

I know they will win their case.

[randr]

9. So true.

If anti-war activists were to demonstrate in such a manner they would have their asses kicked and the ass-kickers would be national heroes.

[wmbrew0206]

12. I honestly think that these idiots are hoping someone assaults them, that way

they can sue and use the money to go to more military members funerals.

[haele]

10. Free speech does not trump responsibility for that speech -

If your legitimate protest is targeted to bring pain to an otherwise innocent party, you should pay the consequences of it.

It's not like the "protesters" a having a protest march, or protesting a march, or even a protest vigil or picket line outside a building providing an activity, service or commodity that is the center of that particular political or social conflict, or has been implicated in verifiable harmful activity.
When Phelps' group targets events that have nothing to do with their "cause" that are selected to cause emotional distress to people who's only association with their cause is that they are Americans and breathing, then a case might be made that their particular activity can be equivalent to terrorism.
A Terrorist bring attention to his or her cause by targeting people who are, at best, peripherally associated with that cause.
Likewise, there's a reason Libel and Slander are not protected as Free Speech.
It's not legal to harm people to make your point, no matter how much of a right you have to advertise that point.

And all the nit-picking of law or Constitution in the world does not protect you from a suit where you have caused enough emotional or physical harm against someone with whom you have no connection to by your actions. The Phelp's right to protest what they think is the downfall of America is in no way restricted by not allowing them to use someone's funeral as a billboard for their particular thought process.

Personally, I don't care how much they claim to believe their petty deity is punishing America and soldiers for the sexual activity of someone else totally unrelated to that soldier halfway across the world, but to seek out a particular, otherwise anomynous soldier's community to make that point on the pain of that community is sick, sick, sick. And I can't see how that can possibly be legal.

My two cents.

Haele

[zbdent]

11. I remember a bunch of RW "Hell's Angels" types who promised to kick the living shi* out

of protesters at military funerals ...

of course, I haven't heard them weigh in too much on the RIGHT-WING Phreaks who are doing these protests ...

a few years back, a RW morning DJ in Akron was ranting about how there might be (inferred "liberal/left/Democrat") protesters at a local funeral for a fallen soldier, and that these people were "sick". Not a word about how the protesters were protesting because "God is angry about Bush letting homosexuality run wild in America" ... that didn't go with the Clear Channel narrative that it was the liberals/lefties/Democrats who were defiling the somber moment.

When I e-mailed him pointing out that these "protesters" would likely agree with him on almost everything else, he questioned what drugs I was on.