Church to pay $10.9 million for funeral protest

[Kizzume]

www.cnn.com/2007/US/10/31/funeral.protest/?iref=mpstoryview

(CNN) -- A federal jury in Baltimore, Maryland, Wednesday awarded $10.9 million to a father of a Marine whose funeral was picketed by members of a fundamentalist church carrying signs blaming soldiers' deaths on America's tolerance of homosexuals.
art.westboro.gi.jpg

A member of Westboro Baptist Church protests outside a veteran's hospital in Maywood, Illinois, in April 2006.

The family of Lance Cpl. Matthew Snyder -- who was killed in a vehicle accident in Iraq's Anbar province in 2006 -- sued the Westboro Baptist Church in Topeka, Kansas, and its leaders for defamation, invasion of privacy and intentional infliction of emotional distress.

Church members showed up at Snyder's funeral chanting derogatory slogans and holding picket signs with messages including "God Hates F-a-g-s."

I think their behavior is despicable. They give Christians a bad name. I think $10.9 million is kind of excessive, but nevertheless, it sends a strong message that preaching overt hatred with picket-style signage during someone's funeral is not going to be tolerated.

[Hackfest]

Yeah, these nut jobs are worse than the KKK. Seriously. I mean, at least with the klan you know what you're getting. These guys run around and pretend to be followers of God in the form of Christians. A horrible lie. Martin Luther King Jr. was a Baptist, and these guys are claiming to be the same thing?! That's no different than if I put on a pink dress, started a pride march, marched into a Sunday service at a real church and started throwing used condoms at all the straight people who were around, and telling them that they better start being tolerant or God would tell me to contract HIV and start raping their kids as punishment, because God hates intolerance. I think it's a fair price. It absolutely shows that it will not be tolerated.

[technocrat]

BWHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHHAHAHH BWHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAH! Good. They get what they deserve, especially since their church doesn't have that much money anyway...it will completely destroy them. Obviously, God Hates Phelps.

[Kizzume]

Both responses had me busting up, but especially the phrase "God Hates Phelps". LOL

Hackfest, that example you gave of an opposite equivalent was GREAT.

[debateman]

Okay, I'm only mildly torn.

1) I think that the Phelps message is one of hate and is not representational of the general Christian understanding of God.
2) I think that the words that Phelps uses to deliver his message are intentionally inflammatory. They want a response using words like "Fags" and "Fag America" and the like.
3) I think that protesting a funeral is the highest form of disrespect. These boys and girls are coming back in body bags to protect the freedom that Phelps has to protest.

But that brings me to

4) I think that Phelps has the Constitutional right to protest. I think as long as he has the proper permits then he can protest whenever and wherever he wants.

So I'm glad that the schmuck got something that was coming to him for a long time (thank you karma), but I'm afraid that we have limited his free speech rights.

[Kizzume]

I agree. We HAVE limited his free speech rights. It's unfortunate that we have to do things this way, but when someone totally abuses their rights, it is likely that they will be taken away.

[Kizzume]

Good example: If too many people use laser pointers to point at airplanes, laser pointers will become illegal.