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Westboro Baptist Church gets smacked - Mithrandir - 11-03-2007
http://www.cnn.com/2007/US/10/31/funeral.p...ref=mpstoryview
I have mixed feelings about this court decision, to say the least. On one hand, these people are obviously scumbags and it's nice to see scumbags get punished once in a while... but on the other hand, while they certainly stretch the First Amendment, I always thought that they were within their rights. The Supreme Court allows Nazis to high step through Jewish neighborhoods - what's the difference? I tend to feel that that is even more heinous than a bunch of idiots holding up "God hates fags" signs at a funeral.
Obviously emotions always run high when people are burying their sons and daughters, but I have an itching feeling that Phelps is correct in saying that it will take 5 minutes to reverse this decision.
In the end, I think these WBC psychos just seem to want attention and this court decision and the resulting lengthy appeals process (AKA more news coverage) just makes things worse. Can't we just ignore those knuckle draggers and move on with our lives? If people just stopped paying attention, they wouldn't be able to get off on all the vitriol directed their way, and they would eventually disappear.
Westboro Baptist Church gets smacked - LemmingofGlory - 11-03-2007
Quote:I have mixed feelings about this court decision, to say the least. On one hand, these people are obviously scumbags and it's nice to see scumbags get punished once in a while... but on the other hand, while they certainly stretch the First Amendment, I always thought that they were within their rights. The Supreme Court allows Nazis to high step through Jewish neighborhoods - what's the difference? I tend to feel that that is even more heinous than a bunch of idiots holding up "God hates fags" signs at a funeral.
Obviously emotions always run high when people are burying their sons and daughters, but I have an itching feeling that Phelps is correct in saying that it will take 5 minutes to reverse this decision.
In the end, I think these WBC psychos just seem to want attention and this court decision and the resulting lengthy appeals process (AKA more news coverage) just makes things worse. Can't we just ignore those knuckle draggers and move on with our lives? If people just stopped paying attention, they wouldn't be able to get off on all the vitriol directed their way, and they would eventually disappear.
The difference is the grounds the family used to sue WBC: "defamation, invasion of privacy and intentional infliction of emotional distress." The claim is not that WBC ought be censored for what they're saying, but that they've overstepped certain social boundaries. There might be an analogy to telemarketers: invasion of privacy, deceptive sales pitches, and deliberate attempt to annoy. We've got the Do Not Call list. Is that infringing on the freedom of speech of rude, bothersome businesses?
For me, the question is whether the basis of the lawsuit makes any sense. I'm not sure how the family is claiming their son was defamed. Invasion of privacy seems like it could be tricky depending on how far privacy extends and whether the funeral was supposed to be open to more than just invitees. "Infliction of emotional distress" has always been iffy with me; I'd prefer if they just made a case for harassment.
The next question is the monetary award. Even if they did ruin the funeral, I'm sure it didn't cost $11 million. If they want to punish WBC, have WBC foot the bill of the funeral as well as another one to make up for their douchebagging the first.
-Lem
Westboro Baptist Church gets smacked - eppie - 11-04-2007
Quote:http://www.cnn.com/2007/US/10/31/funeral.p...ref=mpstoryview
I have mixed feelings about this court decision, to say the least.
I am usually not a fan of the claim culture, but in this case I am just happy that that church needs to pay up.
These words from the article ''intentional infliction of emotional distress.'' says it all.
You are talking about stretching the first amendment. And I don't like the way people do this.
Also in Holland since 5 years or so people confuse the right of free speech with the 'right to offend and hurt'. (just read this weeks newsweek to see how the dutch have become an annoying bunch of winers) :)
And this seems the case here. To go to somebodies funeral (this guy wasn't gay by the way?) and start saying the things these people were saying, had just one intention, and that was hurting these people that were grieving for their deceased son. And doing this in an organized way, has nothing to do with freedom of speech. I think it is good that an example has been set by letting them pay an over the top amount of money.
Freedom of speech: yes,
freedom to hurt: no.
Westboro Baptist Church gets smacked - kandrathe - 11-04-2007
Maybe I can add a little bit of outsider perspective;
Phelps and his group are supralapsarianism Calvinists (not really related to Baptists) who believe that all actions are predestined by God, or God would not have allowed them to happen. Read about absolute predestination, as written by Jerome Zanchi (1516-1590). (Jerome was an influential Italian scholar who became too extreme in his views for the emerging Lutheran Reformers.) These hyper-Calvinists (and that tradition) also believe strongly in the doctrine of Total Depravity in that all humans are in a predestined fallen state because of original sin. The doctrine of total depravity claims that people are by nature not inclined to love God wholly with heart, mind, and strength, as God requires, but rather all are inclined to serve their own selfish interests over those of their neighbor and to reject the rule of God. Even constructs such as religion and philanthropic endeavors are corrupted and destructive to the extent that these originate from a human imagination, passions, and will. Also, a person is predestined to be "saved" or predestined to be "damned to hell", and there is not anything one can do about it. Of course, Phelps and crew believe they are in the saved group, and everyone else is in the damned to hell group. So, Phelps and group are not trying to imply that the soldier is gay, just that God is punishing America for its decadence by killing off its soldiers. I think they are trying to get attention to their ultra-minority viewpoint, and in that regard they are succeeding. In some ways, they are really another scary fringe Jim Jones says drink the koolaid, David Koresh is the messiah, Marshall Applewhite says to castrate ourselves and wait for the aliens to take us to heaven type of misguided cult, which unfortunately also makes a mockery of religion.
I believe they are totally and dangerously wrong in their interpretation of the belief and in their actions. By their measure, God really hated the Americans on Iwo Jima, for what? And, then again on the beaches at D-Day, because of what? Then also the population of Stalingrad at the hands of the Nazi's, why? He just hated everyone at the battle of the Bulge, but not because of homosexuality. There are times in WWII where thousands of soldiers died in a few days. There are times in wars where hundreds of thousands of innocents have died, sometimes instantaneously. It is only a fringe minority that would believe God had a hand in this kind of murderous death. Most Christians (much like Sgt. York) would wrestle morally with the American actions in war, and especially ones like dropping atomic bombs on Hiroshima, and Nagasaki.
I'm usually standing for freedoms, but I think all people should be able to practice their ceremonies without disruption by external hostile protesters. Yes, the Supremes allowed Nazi's to parade down public streets, but do they allow them to parade around Synagogues during worship?
Westboro Baptist Church gets smacked - Mithrandir - 11-04-2007
Quote:I'm usually standing for freedoms, but I think all people should be able to practice their ceremonies without disruption by external hostile protesters. Yes, the Supremes allowed Nazi's to parade down public streets, but do they allow them to parade around Synagogues during worship?
Well, Neo-Nazis are allowed to march past synagogues but the WBC is not allowed to picket outside cemeteries? It still just seems like the same thing to me and it's hypocritical to ban one and not the other. Having a Nazi rally in a Jewish neighborhood seems like an even more blatant attempt to cause emotional distress and yet it is legal. *shrug*
I'm not saying either is good and I'm not proud that either thing is occurring in my country, but I still feel that the law needs to be applied uniformly and fairly.
In any case, I wish we all could just ignore these WBC assholes (and yet I started a thread about them on the LL? Ha!) and that they would just go away.
Westboro Baptist Church gets smacked - Artega - 11-05-2007
Quote:Well, Neo-Nazis are allowed to march past synagogues but the WBC is not allowed to picket outside cemeteries? It still just seems like the same thing to me and it's hypocritical to ban one and not the other. Having a Nazi rally in a Jewish neighborhood seems like an even more blatant attempt to cause emotional distress and yet it is legal. *shrug*
I'm not saying either is good and I'm not proud that either thing is occurring in my country, but I still feel that the law needs to be applied uniformly and fairly.
In any case, I wish we all could just ignore these WBC assholes (and yet I started a thread about them on the LL? Ha!) and that they would just go away.
You could just outlaw all forms of religion equally and that would solve the problem:P
Really, though, these people haven't really done anything outside of the law other than being complete fanatical douchebags. I'd reverse the ruling, too.
Westboro Baptist Church gets smacked - the Langolier - 11-05-2007
Quote:You could just outlaw all forms of religion equally and that would solve the problem:P
Really, though, these people haven't really done anything outside of the law other than being complete fanatical douchebags. I'd reverse the ruling, too.
It wasn't about whether or not they broke they law; it isn't criminal court. It's about whether or not they were complete fanatical douchebags in infringing on the rights of others and facing the 10.9 million consequences of it.
Westboro Baptist Church gets smacked - Nystul - 11-06-2007
Maybe the family should start protesting outside wherever these guys hold service? Picket around their homes, tit for tat style? But this lawsuit thing is kind of silly.
In the first place, I am not a big fan of "punitive damages". It is the job of criminal law to punish wrongdoers. Juries in a civil suit should not be able to order me to pay someone 80 gazillion dollars just because they think I'm a slimeball, no matter how right they may be. After all the world has lots of slimeballs, but only a select few are rich enough to get sued. How fair is that?
So that leaves compensatory damages, which if I'm not mistaken are supposed to actually compensate for something that was lost. I'll go with Lemming's cost of 2 funerals, and we can throw in legal costs for the suit. As crass as this group's protest was, there is no way it cost the family 3 million dollars in any tangible fashion. If you want to sue for emotional distress, you ought to have psychiatrists bills to be compensated for and not some random 7 figure amount you feel like trying for.
With regards to the religious aspect, there is nothing too crazy about predestination or total depravity. These days even people with no religious conviction may believe that they cannot overcome what genetics has passed to them. Trying to interpret the will of God in tragic events though... maybe they need to reread the book of Job.
Westboro Baptist Church gets smacked - Artega - 11-06-2007
My understanding of punitive damages is that it's a method in civil suits to punish the wrongdoer(s) for doing their dirty deed(s) in the form of making them pay an amount of money that will hurt them, but not cripple them.
Say someone has $10,000 to their name. You fine them whatever actual damages they've done to you or your client (in this case it'd be ruining a funeral and all the funeral's associated costs), plus a punitive award to punish them above and beyond the actual damages. If you made them pay $100, that's one percent of their money; they might notice it, they might not. If you made them pay $1,000, that's ten percent of their money; they'll probably notice that and therefore probably won't do it again to avoid having to face a fine like that again.
But that's assuming the wrongdoer in question isn't some fanatical moron and thus thinks normally; you could probably sue these fools for all of their net worth and they'd just say it was God's will :rolleyes:
Westboro Baptist Church gets smacked - Occhidiangela - 11-08-2007
Quote:http://www.cnn.com/2007/US/10/31/funeral.p...ref=mpstoryviewCould not have happened to a nicer bunch of pond scum.
I have mixed feelings about this court decision, to say the least. On one hand, these people are obviously scumbags and it's nice to see scumbags get punished once in a while... but on the other hand, while they certainly stretch the First Amendment, I always thought that they were within their rights. The Supreme Court allows Nazis to high step through Jewish neighborhoods - what's the difference? I tend to feel that that is even more heinous than a bunch of idiots holding up "God hates fags" signs at a funeral.
Obviously emotions always run high when people are burying their sons and daughters, but I have an itching feeling that Phelps is correct in saying that it will take 5 minutes to reverse this decision.
In the end, I think these WBC psychos just seem to want attention and this court decision and the resulting lengthy appeals process (AKA more news coverage) just makes things worse. Can't we just ignore those knuckle draggers and move on with our lives? If people just stopped paying attention, they wouldn't be able to get off on all the vitriol directed their way, and they would eventually disappear.
Phelps and his pals allegedly have a complaint with America's social system, specifically the existence of homosexuals, and in order to attract attention, interrupt the funerals of Marines and soldiers.
Sorry, that's a rather gross non sequitur, and it is an intentional form of trolling, at the expense of someone else, to try and induce a reaction that allows Phelps the Phuquewit to sue someone who reacts violently to his assholery. Phelps got his start as a lawyer.
The best response I know of is the Patriot Guard Riders, a biker group who escorts the funeral party on their bikes, and then patrols between Phelps and his Phuquesticks, and the funeral, in support of
THE GRIEVING FAMILY.
He is the worst kind of arsehole: a hypocritical lawyer by training, who is exploiting the emotions involved in the war to make a point, and a buck, the families situation be damned. Why no one has shot this complete oxygen thief is a mystery to me. If MLK can be shot, this guy needs to be hit by the entire arsenal of the West Coast Cripps, at once.
Other than that, I have no opinion. :P
Occhi
Westboro Baptist Church gets smacked - Tris - 11-08-2007
Some thoughts:
1) Whether or not Phelps had legal training really does not relate to his current state of provocativeness. When properly applied, attorneys can be quite provocative for good causes (see the actions of the Bar in Pak. concerning the martial law status in that country). While such training could prepare him with knowledge of how far things can be pushed, it does not make him more or less annoying.
2) Regarding compensatory damages... the problem is how do you place a value on something that is a 1 time only event? If paying for the funeral was the only remedy... that's cheap for causing people grief. The same thing applies for paying for psychiatric services. I am not saying that it's easy to come up with a figure for this... but am saying that there is more to the "event" than just the cost of the event.
3) Concerning punitive damages... Punitives exist to punish individuals/entities when criminal laws don't apply (Except Exxon, where they are pushing to get punitives removed entirely for the Valdez:P). Plus, they theoretically represent a means to reduce the likelihood of the event happening again. Ideally, the punitive damage amount is calculated to serve as a deterrent to future conduct.
4) Getting rid of religion won't work. You can eradicate all the major religions and still have issues. No matter what you do, you will have people who live in hatred.
-------
Freedom of speech implies the consequences of using that freedom.
Westboro Baptist Church gets smacked - Thenryb - 11-08-2007
Actually, Phelps did not get his start as a lawyer. If memory serves, he got his start by selling either vacuum cleaners or brushes door to door and by having his then young children sell candy door to door and turn over the proceeds to the family coffers. He has been barred from practicing in the courts of the bar to which he was originally admitted for a long time now. So maybe he ought to be described as a hypocritical salesman or minister. Although I realize lawyers are mighty tempting targets, he really does seem to be doing more mischief as a baptist minister these days.
Westboro Baptist Church gets smacked - Monkey - 11-08-2007
Quote:2) Regarding compensatory damages... the problem is how do you place a value on something that is a 1 time only event? If paying for the funeral was the only remedy... that's cheap for causing people grief. The same thing applies for paying for psychiatric services. I am not saying that it's easy to come up with a figure for this... but am saying that there is more to the "event" than just the cost of the event.
3) Concerning punitive damages... Punitives exist to punish individuals/entities when criminal laws don't apply (Except Exxon, where they are pushing to get punitives removed entirely for the Valdez:P). Plus, they theoretically represent a means to reduce the likelihood of the event happening again. Ideally, the punitive damage amount is calculated to serve as a deterrent to future conduct.
Interesting note about Juries and 'damages'--Historically in product liability / person injury civil suits, Juries have been far more generous with damage awards for suffering than for actual damage. I.e., causing a person to die has historically lower damages than causing that same person to suffer.
Also, regarding the so-called 1st Amendment aspects of the story: The ACLU has challenged two recent (WBC-inspired) laws written banning protests near funerals, but they have not become involved with this lawsuit. Probably because (counter to the WBC's opinion on the matter) this has nothing to do with the 1st Amendment:
Quote:Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.
A jury of your peers deciding against you in a civil suit is not a law-making body. Whoops!
Westboro Baptist Church gets smacked - Bun-Bun - 11-08-2007
Quote:A jury of your peers deciding against you in a civil suit is not a law-making body. Whoops!
I'd say that's splitting the hair too fine. A court is a governmental body; its decisions, derived from a judge or a jury are regardless enforced by the government. Civil decisions don't get to sidestep the Constitution.
I think it's not a First Amendment issue because there are a vast number of other venues this gang of cretins may spew bile in. The specific timing and choice of audience caused injury, and the jury went along with that concept. It disturbs me that people (to use the term loosely) are being punished for speech we find reprehensible because there is a slippery slope argument to be made; we cannot outlaw or unduly restrict speech we don't like or we lose the heart of the First Amendment. On the other hand, it is recognized that some speech can cause harm. I prefer the line to be drawn in a fashion most generous to the speaker, but there is a line.
Westboro Baptist Church gets smacked - DeeBye - 11-09-2007
The First Amendment protects free speech, but it does not exempt you from the consequences of what you say. I have no problem with this ruling. An American citizen has the right to loudly and publicly call his boss an asshole, but the First Amendment isn't going to protect him from being fired.
Westboro Baptist Church gets smacked - Artega - 11-09-2007
Quote:The First Amendment protects free speech, but it does not exempt you from the consequences of what you say. I have no problem with this ruling. An American citizen has the right to loudly and publicly call his boss an asshole, but the First Amendment isn't going to protect him from being fired.
Well said.
Westboro Baptist Church gets smacked - kandrathe - 11-09-2007
Quote:... Although I realize lawyers are mighty tempting targets, he really does seem to be doing more mischief as a baptist minister these days.I would only take exception with the above.
According to the Wikipedia;
Quote:While its members identify themselves as Baptists, the church is an independent church not affiliated with any known Baptist conventions or associations, nor does any Baptist institution recognize the church as a Bible believing fellowship. The church describes itself as following Primitive Baptist and Calvinist principles. Its first public service was held on the afternoon of Sunday, 27 November 1955.And particularly I would note, "...nor does any Baptist institution recognize the church as a Bible believing fellowship...", to which I would add that no other religious institution endorses their world view.
The church bases its work around the belief expressed by its best known slogan and the address of its primary website, "God hates fags", and expresses the idea, based on its Biblical eisegesis, that nearly every tragedy in the world is linked to homosexuality – specifically society's increasing tolerance and acceptance of the so-called "Homosexual Agenda." The group maintains that God hates homosexuals above all other kinds of "sinners" and that homosexuality should be a capital crime.(link)
P.S. I poked around some of their web sites (and now I need a shower), and I found their main message to be "God hates you." and mostly "God hates you because you don't hate fags like I do." Much of their teaching is centered around biblical misquotes and out of context misinterpretations in essence proving that their God is a god of hatred. They teach that every miserable thing that happens in this world is the consequence of people accepting homosexuality and sin. They are to me the definition of the term "attention whores". Let the ADL and the SPLC keep an eye on them and some other misguided groups like Watchmen on the Walls, but the rest of us need to not feed the beast and expose them as frauds.
Westboro Baptist Church gets smacked - Thenryb - 11-09-2007
Wrong thread
Westboro Baptist Church gets smacked - Thenryb - 11-09-2007
Glad to hear that Phelps is neither representative of lawyers or Baptist ministers.
Westboro Baptist Church gets smacked - kandrathe - 11-10-2007
Quote:Glad to hear that Phelps is neither representative of lawyers or Baptist ministers.Yeah, this guy is a waste of air. But, I imagine one could make a boat load of money selling toilet paper with his image on it.