Supreme Court Rules in Favor of Westboro Baptist Church

I am extremely not all that surpised the Supreme Court of the united States ruled in favor of the Westboro baptist Church in Snyder v. Phelps, but am extremely surpised it was an 8-1 ruling. You have lost badly when eight justices overlook their usuallly conflicting judicial philosophies to rule against you.

The ruling in Snyder recognizes a First Amendment right to peacefully protest at funerals on matters of public importance. Evidently, the morally dubious notion of protesting a brave marine killed in Iraq because Fred phelps and his clan think he was defending what they call the united States of Sodom is a matter of national importance.

Two things are confirmed for me in Snyder. One, the Calvinist principle of total depravity is absolute truth. The moral bankruptcy one must have to force one’s ignorant views on a grieving family burying their son is unfathomable. The arrogance and selfishness necessary to feel the need to express one’s view at that certain time and place is disgusting. Two, Snyder confirms the uncomfortable reality that if you want to have the freedom of John Stewart marketplace of ideas, you have to let Nazis march down main street.

On the plus side--there is one, I promise--Snyder has rendered it virtually impossible for anyone to sue for the tort of intentional infliction of emotional stress over political speech. Had Snyder gone the other way, precedent would have been set for, say, university students to sue over the stress of speech they do not like having a place on campus. Think Ann coulter never speaking on campus again at of lawsuit fears. No Republicans ever giving commencement speeches. Or conspicuous gatherings of religious groups on campus.

I am an adamant supporter of free speech. After having spent time among the ranks of bob Jones acolytes and a sizeable similar group at Regent University School of Law, I am highly familiar with the results of shutting down opposing viewpoints. Young people in particular wind up so brainwashed, most never fully recover. Sadder still, most do not even know damaged they are. In that regard, I appreciate the ruling. Truth be told, you can never truly understand why a belief is wrong until you are exposed to it.

But I am also saddened there are people out there like the WBC who lack all decency in exercising the rights granted to them by a country they despise while protesting the death of a soldier killed defending that right. I have very little faith in humanity as a whole. Sometimes my faith manages to sink even lower.

To end on as positive a note as I can, Bill O’Reilly has offered to pay Phelps’ legal fees, for which Snyder is obligated to pay. Progressives who unfairly attack o’Reilly’s character ought to be ashamed to further do so.