Jury rules against Westboro cultists

[Inky_Wretch]

URGENT
Jury awards father $2.9 million in funeral protesters case
By ALEX DOMINGUEZ
Associated Press Writer
BALTIMORE (AP) — A grieving father won a $2.9 million verdict Wednesday against a fundamentalist Kansas church that pickets military funerals out of a belief that the war in Iraq is a punishment for the nation’s tolerance of homosexuality.

 

[heyabbott]

The church and its members maintained that they did nothing wrong. They based their legal defense on the First Amendment, arguing that their protests were constitutionally protected. Their attorneys told jurors yesterday that Westboro members were expressing closely held religious beliefs about an immoral society, including the military, that has endorsed homosexuality.

Jonathan Katz, the attorney for the church and one of its founders, said that members followed state law during their protest in Westminster because they stood on public property about 1,000 feet from the funeral.

The church's controversial protests have prompted at least 22 states to enact or propose laws to limit the rights of protesters at funerals. Only months after Matthew Snyder's death, Maryland passed a law prohibiting people from picketing within 100 feet of a funeral, memorial, burial or procession.

http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/local/bal-westboro1031,0,7191706.story?coll=bal_tab01_layout

I'm sure the ACLU will file Amicus Briefs for the next decade on behalf of the Church of Hate.

Don't forget to send a special contribution to the ACLU for this one, F_B. Without your support this type of conduct will not continue to be protected.

 

[BNWriter]

Congrats to this father. I hope others join him in suing. These people picketed a church in my town last year. They are hateful...They have their own spin on who is going to hell and why, and they are...just. plain. nuts. and. just. plain. wrong.

 

[Starman]

Great.

Sooner or later, somebody still needs to work these ****ers over with a baseball bat.

Carry a couple of them off in rubber bags, that will put an end to their bull****.

 

[spnited]

Great.

Sooner or later, somebody still needs to work these ****ers over with a baseball bat.

Carry a couple of them off in rubber bags, that will put an end to their bull****.

We can always count on Starman to be the voice of reason.

 

[Starman]

As long as they continue the strategy of picketing military funerals, I have little doubt at some point they'll encounter a father, brother or uncle who owns a gun, and knows how to use it.

And no jury in the world will convict.

 

[Inky_Wretch]

Yab, there's no need for a shot at Fenian on this thread.

Disgust for the Phelps' cult has no political boundries.

 

[JR]

Their freedom of speech just cost them 2.9 million. Good.

Personally, I kinda like the little preamble in our Charter

The Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms guarantees the rights and freedoms set out in it subject only to such reasonable limits prescribed by law as can be demonstrably justified in a free and democratic society.

Freedom of speech is not absolute.

 

[Starman]

Their freedom of speech just cost them 2.9 million. Good.

Personally, I kinda like the little preamble in our Charter

The Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms guarantees the rights and freedoms set out in it subject only to such reasonable limits prescribed by law as can be demonstrably justified in a free and democratic society.

Freedom of speech is not absolute.

They'll never pay a nickel, of course.

Juries can award $100,000,000,000,000,000,000 in damages against them and it won't make any difference.

A few of them get put into traction for a few years, maybe they'll get the point.

 

[JR]

Starman, you may or may not be right. But it still sends a message.

And although I'm against capital punishment, a good old fashion horsewhipping would warm the cockles of my heart.

Scum of the earth.

 

[Flying Headbutt]

Those guys were supposed to picket the same town for two different funerals in the span of four days once. Their first protest came on a Sunday, and at the end a couple of them got the **** kicked out of them, and the rest were scared pretty good. The local fire department had to buy new tires and spring for some new windows for the vans that ferried their pathetic asses in and out. But they didn't come back on Wednesday.

 

[beefncheddar]

Start taking up donations. They claim they're going to picket the funerals of the students killed in the N.C. beach house fire.

 

[Inky_Wretch]

Start taking up donations. They claim they're going to picket the funerals of the students killed in the N.C. beach house fire.

They also claimed they were going to picket the Amish schoolchildren funerals, but then didn't show up.

 

[ATLienCP]

Maybe they will picket one of their own funerals after one of them gets killed while picketing a funeral for someones kid. Unless the act of picketing funerals is supposed to remove gods wrath away from them.

 

[Starman]

Start taking up donations. They claim they're going to picket the funerals of the students killed in the N.C. beach house fire.

They also claimed they were going to picket the Amish schoolchildren funerals, but then didn't show up.

They promised/threatened to show up at the Virginia Tech student funerals, too. Amazingly enough, they chickened out.

 

[Cracker]

I wouldn't be all that surprised to see the Fourth Circuit overturn this. SCOTUS would almost certainly grant cert on this case since it is a fairly substantial constitutional issue.

 

[Twoback]

From the Chicago Tribune:
Westboro Baptist Church, a fundamentalist Christian group based in Topeka, Kan., has protested military funerals across the country with placards bearing shock-value messages such as "Thank God for dead soldiers."

-- Don't the media have any responsibility for the words they use?
Fundamentalist????
Which of Jesus' fundamentals called for people to spew hatred the way these people do?
From Luke 6: Just as you want others to do for you, do the same for them.
There's a fundamental the Westboro maniacs never stop to ponder.
Nothing about their ways indicates they are Christian. So why give them the designation?

 

[Inky_Wretch]

I suspect that phrase is used because that's what the Westboro cultists call themselves.

 

[Pastor]

From the Chicago Tribune:
Westboro Baptist Church, a fundamentalist Christian group based in Topeka, Kan., has protested military funerals across the country with placards bearing shock-value messages such as "Thank God for dead soldiers."

-- Don't the media have any responsibility for the words they use?
Fundamentalist????
Which of Jesus' fundamentals called for people to spew hatred the way these people do?
From Luke 6: Just as you want others to do for you, do the same for them.
There's a fundamental the Westboro maniacs never stop to ponder.
Nothing about their ways indicates they are Christian. So why give them the designation?

Being that the only basic requirement for being a Christian is the belief that Jesus is the son of God, they have the right to call themselves Christian, fundamentalist Christian, super Christian, etcetera, all they want.

 

[Twoback]

From the Chicago Tribune:
Westboro Baptist Church, a fundamentalist Christian group based in Topeka, Kan., has protested military funerals across the country with placards bearing shock-value messages such as "Thank God for dead soldiers."

-- Don't the media have any responsibility for the words they use?
Fundamentalist????
Which of Jesus' fundamentals called for people to spew hatred the way these people do?
From Luke 6: Just as you want others to do for you, do the same for them.
There's a fundamental the Westboro maniacs never stop to ponder.
Nothing about their ways indicates they are Christian. So why give them the designation?

Being that the only basic requirement for being a Christian is the belief that Jesus is the son of God, they have the right to call themselves Christian, fundamentalist Christian, super Christian, etcetera, all they want.

If I call myself the Prince of Wales, are you going to call me that in print with a straight face?