WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court agreed Monday to decide the outer limits of free-speech protection for protests and to rule on whether a dead soldier’s family can sue religious protesters who picketed near their son’s funeral carrying signs that read “Thank God for dead soldiers.”
The case of anti-gay picketing at military funerals tests whether the most hateful protests must be tolerated under the First Amendment, even if they inflict emotional harm. In this instance, the victims were the family of Marine Lance Cpl. Matthew Snyder, who was killed in combat in Iraq in 2006.
When his family announced his funeral would be held in Westminster, Md., a Kansas preacher decided to travel there with a few followers to protest. In recent years, the Rev. Fred Phelps, founder of Westboro Baptist Church, has been protesting at military funerals around the nation because he believes the United States is too tolerant of homosexuality, and U.S. deaths in Iraq and Afghanistan are divine punishment.
Though kept distant from St. John’s Catholic Church and the cemetery, Phelps and his followers carried signs that read “God Hates the USA,” “Fag troops” and “Pope in hell.”
There was no suggestion that Snyder was gay or that the protests even involved him directly. But after returning to Kansas, Phelps said on his Web site that Albert Snyder, the soldier’s father, had “taught Matthew to defy his creator” and “raised him for the devil.”
Snyder sued Phelps for invading his privacy and for an intentional infliction of emotional distress. A Maryland jury rejected Phelps’ defense based on free speech and awarded Snyder $10.9 million in damages. A judge reduced the amount to $5 million.
Last September, the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals threw out verdict, citing the First Amendment. The protest signs were “distasteful and repugnant,” but their words were wild and hyperbolic, the judges said. They did not “assert actual facts about either Snyder or his son,” the court said.
The father appealed to the Supreme Court, noting that a family at a funeral is a “captive audience” and cannot simply turn away from a hateful protest.
“Snyder had one (and only one) opportunity to bury his son and that occasion has been tarnished forever,” his lawyer said. “Matthew deserved better. A civilized society deserved better.”
The high court said it had voted to hear the case of Snyder vs. Phelps in the fall and to consider reinstating the jury verdict.
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