Our First Amendment got a major test recently, when the Supreme Court upheld a lower court\u2019s reversal of a multi-million dollar judgment against the Westboro Baptist Church. If you don\u2019t already know, the father of a fallen Marine sued the church leaders for \u201cintentional infliction of emotional distress, intrusion upon seclusion, and civil conspiracy\u201d after seven church members protested his son\u2019s military funeral. The protestors\u2019 signs included, \u201cThank God for Dead Soldiers\u201d and \u201cGod Hates You.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
The Supremes sided with the church\u2019s free speech rights in an 8-1 decision, stating, \u201cSuch speech cannot be restricted simply because it is upsetting or arouses contempt.\u201d You really have to read the text of the decision to understand the nuances of what makes their signs protected speech.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
Church leaders didn\u2019t have absolute free reign to wave signs willy-nilly; there were restrictions in place for protests like this. They weren\u2019t permitted to be within 1,000 feet of the funeral. They had to protest on a small public property lot. They notified local authorities that they were going to assemble and protest.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
There really aren\u2019t strong enough adjectives in the English language to describe how awful I think the church protestors are. We\u2019ve overused terms like \u201chorrible\u201d and \u201crepugnant,\u201d as well as comparisons to Hitler. I\u2019ll just have to add them to my Top 50 list of Worst People on the Planet.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
Ever since that decision, public discussion on it has been mixed, with plenty of outraged people claiming that the justices got it completely wrong. They want the government to stop these kinds of protests because it\u2019s easier to have them do it. Governments have guns, handcuffs, jails, cars and permission to haul these offenders out of our sight.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
But that\u2019s the lazy way out. The more difficult path is ostracism, isolation, and a strong community response.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
The fallen Marine\u2019s father who sued the protesters saw the tops of the signs, but didn\u2019t see what was on them until the TV news coverage showed them that evening.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
Part of that was due to a group called the Patriot Guard Riders, a non-profit organization whose sole purpose is to show respect for fallen military personnel, and to shield mourning families from disruptive protesters. The group outnumbered the protesters, and blocked their presence with oversized American flags.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
That\u2019s a strong community response.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
The local news outlets didn\u2019t have to cover the protestors, but they did anyway. As consumers of the news, we can choose what to watch and read, and we can choose not to give them any of our attention or support. Nearly everyone thinks they are morons, and the church has no credibility in public discussions of any issue. Isolation and ostracism.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
Upholding the case against the church would have set a terrible precedent; that you can\u2019t say hurtful things if it makes someone feel bad. But not everyone feels that way.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
One letter to the editor read, \u201cWe don\u2019t have to impede the rights of others to express our opinion and exercise our freedom of speech.\u201d However, once we start making exceptions to ban extreme behavior like this, it\u2019s just another step towards banning the next lower level of extreme behavior.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
Don\u2019t believe me? Take a look at smoking laws. Rather than an outright ban of smoking, opponents have strategically chipped away at smokers\u2019 rights. First, you can\u2019t smoke inside public buildings. Then, you can\u2019t smoke within 25 feet of the door of those buildings.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
New York City is actively working to ban smoking in outdoor public places, including beaches, parks, and Times Square. Minnesota even tried to spin their 2007 smoking ban as the \u201cFreedom to Breathe Act.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
So how does free speech work in other countries? If you\u2019re protesting in the Libyan capital this week, you\u2019re probably going to get shot. If you don\u2019t die right away, they\u2019ll come into the hospital, drag you out, and finish the job. In the Ivory Coast, a peaceful march of 5,000 women protesting election results was met by government soldiers who opened fire with machine guns, killing eight women.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
That doesn\u2019t happen in America anymore. I say anymore, because labor protests in the late 19th and early 20th centuries provide plenty of examples of violence where protesters were shot, beaten, killed, and deprived of their right to assemble.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
Organized labor is dying a slow death today, and their rights are being chipped away. I think that\u2019s because we\u2019ve forgotten how hard people had to fight for those rights. We\u2019ve forgotten how hard we had to fight for freedom of speech too.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
The people who think that the Supreme Court was wrong in this case value convenience a little more than they value freedom. To paraphrase Benjamin Franklin, a society that would give up a little liberty to gain a little security will deserve neither and lose both.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
Freedom is hard, but, it\u2019s worth the effort.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
Ryan Ryals lives in Maple Valley and writes a weekly column about politics and life in the city. Reach him at ryanryals@ymail.com.<\/p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Our First Amendment got a major test recently, when the Supreme Court upheld a lower court\u2019s reversal of a multi-million dollar judgment against the Westboro Baptist Church. If you don\u2019t already know, the father of a fallen Marine sued the church leaders for \u201cintentional infliction of emotional distress, intrusion upon seclusion, and civil conspiracy\u201d after […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":248,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"yst_prominent_words":[],"class_list":["post-9992","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-opinion"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9992"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/248"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9992"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9992\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9992"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9992"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9992"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=9992"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}