In 2010 the Snyder family filed a lawsuit against the Westboro Baptist Church that picketed the funeral of their son who was killed in Iraq. They thought that the church violated their rights for privacy and intentionally inflicted the emotional distress by means of defamation (Oyez). However, the lawsuit was unsuccessful, because the Supreme Court came to the conclusion that the First Amendment justified the actions of the Westboro Church. Their protest was public and was not directed against the Snyder’s son or them. Moreover, they stayed away from the memorial service in the public area and the police supervised them (Gregory). Therefore there was not any direct communication between the Snyders and the protesters. Only one judge supported the Snyders’ position. Samuel Alito stated that the petitioners’ brutal attitude caused great injury. In addition, in his opinion the attacks were targeted against the dead soldier and the issue of defamation could not be justified by the First Amendment (Gregory).
In my opinion, the court took the right decision, because the Westboro Church did not directly attack the people at the memorial service. The protest was extremely brutal and inappropriate, but it was legal within the First Amendment that supports free exercise of religion, freedom of speech and the right to peaceably assemble. Moreover, the Westboro Church was using very broad messages the addressee of which is very unclear - in general the messages were directed not at Snyders, but at the American government.
Therefore, the issue of setting limits to the free speech is very controversial and people may have very different opinions about where the line must be drawn. So, the court that consists of several judges should decide who is right in the disputes similar to the dispute between Snyder and Phelps. At the same time, we as citizens should understand that the other people have the same human rights as us and we should not offend them. In most cases it is very clear when we mistreat the other people, because usually such actions have a motive and a private purpose. However, in some cases some public topics are taken personally and the people get easily offended. There were always debates about the U.S. army and those people who criticize it were often viewed as betrayers or cowards. So it is important to strive for the freedom of speech in order to respect both points of view concerning the army. The brutal campaigns such as the one that was organized by the Westboro Church should be present in the American society for the sake of pluralism of ideas as long as they are not directed against the specific people.
Works Cited
Gregory, S. Why the Supreme Court Ruled for Westboro. Time. 3 March 2011. Web. 07
"Snyder v. Phelps." Oyez. Chicago-Kent College of Law at Illinois Tech, n.d. Web. Apr 7,
2016.
