Mobile
Monday, March 15, 2010
Boomer with Attitude / News Whose rights? Hate speech vs. funerals' privacy
Posted By John Grooms on Mon, Mar 15, 2010 at 12:47 PM
People like Fred Phelps can make you think twice about free speech rights. Phelps, as you probably know, is the belligerent preacher from Kansas, who has also set up a headquarters in Waynesville, N.C. Phelps' followers show up at soldiers' funerals to protest gays. To them, this actually makes sense because, they say, America's growing tolerance of gays and lesbians is making God really mad, and the Loving Deity is punishing the country by killing off our soldiers overseas. So Phelps' jerks "protest" at military funerals and hold signs saying things like "God Blew Up The Troops," "Too Late To Pray Now," "God Hates the USA," and "God Hates Your Tears."
Now, you know and I know that you've got to be one twisted, lowlife piece of scum to think along those lines, and we know that only seriously screwy, heartless jackasses would mock mourners at any funeral. But, again, it's America, and Phelps & Phriends have the same rights of free speech as the rest of us, right? Well, we'll see; the Supreme Court has agreed to take up a case in which the family of a fallen soldier from Maryland sued Phelps' church. The family initially won a multi-million dollar judgment, but it was thrown out by a U.S. Court of Appeals on First Amendment grounds.
Writer Michael Smerconish of the Philadelphia Inquirer presents an interesting argument for denying Phelps' Phreaks' free speech rights. He points out that the First Amendment actually protects what can at times be conflicting rights — such as Phelps' right to spew venom vs. the soldier's family's right to gather peacefully (or, for that matter, to exercise their religion at their son's Catholic funeral). Smerconish writes, "It's a crime to yell 'Fire!' in the theater. It should be one to yell 'fag' at a fallen soldier's funeral as well." I don't know if his argument holds, though, since yelling "fire" in a crowded public space is dangerous to the physical well-being of the crowd, but Phelps' goons yelling "fag" is only dangerous to the protesters' own physical well-being. It's a genuine legal dilemma for which this writer doesn't have an answer. Or at least a legal answer.
In a 2006 essay on the death penalty, I wrote of similar conflicted feelings, and concluded that although a child rapist in Louisiana shouldn't be executed, "Truth be told ... if his victim's parents had caught up with him before the police did and had blown his head off, I wouldn't really have a problem with that ... it's complicated." Which, for some reason, brings to mind one of my favorite Woody Allen quotes, in the context of Fred Phelps & Phollowers: "An op-ed piece in the Times is good, but with Nazis, I figure baseball bats really get the point across."
Speaking of...
Latest in The CLog
More by John Grooms
-
Lunch Break (9/1/16): Organizers unveil "People, Not Polluters" platform in Charlotte as McCrory officials testify in Raleigh
The morning already passed us by. What the hell happened?
-
Jigsaw, Dating App That Hides Users’ Faces, launches in Charlotte, NCTo Fight Superficial Dating App Culture 3
-
Question the Queen City: The story of Mabel Rea 4
The Charlotte native went Hollywood, returned home and met a tragic demise.
