I'm not going to lie, I felt kind of cool printing out the recent Supreme Court decision a mere two days after it was decided. I felt like I was on the cutting edge of a deeper understanding of the 1st Amendment and protected speech. I compare it to reading the new Harry Potter book as soon as it comes out or getting the U2 album I pre-ordered on iTunes nine hours before it's available to everyone else. (By the way, I have never read Harry Potter but I have pre-ordered a U2 album, among others, on iTunes.)
Justice Roberts' decision is not long, even with Justice Breyers' concurrence and Justice Alito's dissent. Roberts' sticks tightly to the issues in front of the court, openly declaring that Westboro's personal, vengeful message on their website directed at Matthew Snyder's parents, who they specifically mention by name in the posting referred to as "The Epic", was not brought to their attention in the petitioner's petition for certiorari. While the Court contends that the record would need to be looked at in the whole to decide whether or not Snyder has a claim for IIED that Westboro would not be able to use the 1st Amendment as a defense for, this piece of evidence is seen as a separate claim and not part of the record as a whole when judging Westboro's actions. I am not sure whether to be frustrated with the court for basically omitting evidence from the record or whether to be frustrated with Snyder's attorney who addressed the actions of the picketing in the petition and did not tie "The Epic" so closely into the evidence of IIED that it was so easy for the Court to ignore when viewing the record as a whole.
There is also a debate about where speech issues of public concern cross the line into a person's private life. While a funeral can be open to the public, allowing those who knew and loved the deceased to pay their final respects, a funeral remains a very private event for those closest to the deceased. The shock of losing a child, parent, sibling, spouse, or close friend provides a form of insulation that can lend itself to feeling very alone in the middle of a church filled with mourners. While the protestors were not yelling, were 1,000 feet away from the church on public land adjacent to a public street proclaiming what they believe are issues of public interest I cannot help but side with Alito in his dissent; this was not a matter of public interest but rather a specific attack on a private person. Westboro doesn't just show up at random soldier's funerals; they issue a press release in advance stating which individual's funeral they plan to protest and why to gain publicity and media attention. Marine Lance Corporal Matthew Snyder was chosen after Phelps heard about his funeral because Snyder was a soldier and a Catholic, both reasons according to Westboro why "God Hates America." As Alito points out in his dissent, the protestors could have gone anywhere along any of the over 4,000,000 miles of public streets in the U.S., on any day to utilize their 1st Amendment rights to address what they deem is a matter of "public interest", that the U.S. is overly tolerant of homosexuality which is why God is killing soldiers. They specifically target this funeral and found a loophole in the local law to stage their attack on the Snyder family during this private and emotional time in their lives, the burial of their son, in order to inflict emotional distress. It was not out of respect for the Snyder family that the group contact local law enforcement to make sure they did not encroach on their son's funeral; it was a calculated move on their part to disguise their rhetoric and hate speech as a First Amendment right to cause Intentional Infliction of Emotional Distress on the Snyder family personally, and the Supreme Court fell right into their trap.
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