A few days ago, the Supreme Court ruled that the actions taken by the Westboro Baptist Church should and would be protected by the First Amendment. The ruling was an 8-1 decision, with the lone dissenter being Justice Alito.
"Speech is powerful. It can stir people to action, move them to tears of both joy and sorrow, and -- as it did here -- inflict great pain. On the facts before us, we cannot react to that pain by punishing the speaker," Chief Justice John Roberts wrote for the majority.
The problem with this ruling is that the actions taken by the Phelps family (basically the only members of the WBC), while it’s technically speech, do not add to the marketplace of ideas. Instead, Fred Phelps and the rest of his degenerate, backwoods clan are simply camera hungry, narcissistic bigots. They will do anything to get on camera and get the attention of the American media. And not only are they winning, but thanks to the Supreme Court, they now have free reign to continue their backwards and vile “rights.”
The case was brought by a man named Albert Snyder, the father of Matthew Snyder who gave his life for his country. Phelps and his offspring picketed outside the funeral with signs like “God Hates Fags,” “God Hates Israel” and “Thank God for 9/11.” Snyder claimed that Phelps had created extreme emotional distress. Initially, the courts ruled with Snyder, awarding him monetary reparations. But, as we’ve seen, the First Amendment must be protected at all costs, even for thugs like Fred Phelps.
Should the group that believes Obama has formed an unholy union with Satan, that Catholic priests are pedophile vampires, that India is a country of “fags and fag enablers,” that “Jews are the real Nazis,” and that “Mohammed was a demon-possessed whoremonger and pedophile who contrived a 300-page work of Satanic fiction” get First Amendment protection? Regardless of what most of us think, they will have it as of March 2, 2011.
The problem I have with the WBC is that their messages are painfully unclear. If they had even the faintest trace of a message, I could understand the Supreme Court not wanting to censor them (see Brandenburg v. Ohio and Beauharnais v. Illinois). But the Phelps family has no message other than “We’ll say whatever it takes to get on TV.” And that should not be allowed to continue.
What’s worse is they’ve done their homework. They know how far away they’re supposed to stand from the funerals. Fred Phelps sent a few of his kids through law school so he could stop paying lawyers and keep it in the family. So it should be unbearably clear that the speech isn’t what matters to them; if it was, they wouldn’t be so studious of the laws. Instead, the attention is the most important thing to the WBC. They know what they can do to get attention and not get arrested.
The clearest test to see whether or not the WBC floats is this: what do they propose as a solution? Yes, they say “God Hates Fags,” and rejoice that the foot soldiers of a homosexual sympathizing country are dying in distant lands. But what do they believe to be the answer to this problem? Do they expect the government to round up everyone who has ever had a homosexual experience and put them in internment camps?
But here’s the kicker. If they were this outraged by American tolerance of homosexuality, why don’t they leave? Why not pack up and head out? I’m pretty sure there are places in the world that hold similar “views” as this church. If they were true to their word, the WBC would probably enjoy Uganda.
But the truth is that the WBC has no true message, outside of being adjacent to attention starved hound dogs looking for scrapes from the dinner table. Whether or not they actually believe the Grade A horseshit that they perpetuate is irrelevant. All that Fred Phelps and company really want is more time on the television.
The WBC is nothing shy of a backwoods hate group that dislikes anyone who is different than the immediate majority. Their leader, Fred Phelps, is a lunatic. He is a senile old man who rejected any sense of decency when he was removed from the Kansas Bar in 1977. But more importantly, he is a delusional old fiend who delights in tearing away the last shreds of human decency just so he can be on TV. Even more simplified, Fred Phelps is a monster.
There is no logical reason why Phelps and the WBC should be allowed to protest funerals, regardless if they are military funerals or not, saying that God killed the departed to get back at America for not taking care of the gay problem. There is no defendable rationale that should allow these trolls to make the worst day of someone’s life even more miserable. If nothing else, the right to privacy should protect these families from the hate and evil that brews in the minds and spews out of the mouths of these assholes.
Fred Phelps and his lowly, moral-less, propaganda spreading and fear-mongering thugs don’t belong in this country. We are a nation based on progressiveness, understanding, and a desire to move past differences. The Phelps family represents everything we know to be wrong, but lack the fortitude or integrity to stop. The Supreme Court obviously didn’t have the balls to tell these hillbillies to fuck off, but we need to. We need to let these monsters know that we know what they’re up to, and that it won’t work. But most importantly, the media needs to tell these assholes to crawl back under the rock they came from, and think long and hard before slithering back out into the light of day.
They are not Christians wronged by a vile world that refuses to understand. They are a group of degenerate, attention starved lackeys for a wicked, hateful old man who believes he needs to be famous and relevant. And what’s worse, is that we’re obliging him.
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