I would argue that a reverent silence is also speech and has the upper-hand in a private setting.

I hope you are not arguing that some speech is protected and other speech is not. Like, say, keeping silent is protected while religious speech which you find objectionable is not allowable within 1000 yards of a private setting?

If you are premising the argument on the idea that socially acceptable speech is protected under the constitution and that socially undesirable speech is not, then I think you fail to see the purpose of the freedom of speech provisions.

Erin: Alito may have a point, but he can’t technically rule that way because it is contrary to the Constitution. We would have to amend the first amendment. It sucks they have to abuse it, but we can’t take it away because of these idiotic people, and they know that and exploit it. Don’t worry. They will get what’s coming to them.“

I would argue that a reverent silence is also speech and has the upper-hand in a private setting. Westboro’s protests are to specifically deny that component of speech and moreoften what is a component of religious speech in what is a private moment if not private setting. In point of fact, Westboro may be intruding up on the rights of people in the free exercise their religion. So I would say that Westboro has two strikes against them.

I don’t see how the Westboro group “get what’s coming to them.” Do you mean a god-based judgement in the ‘hereafter?’ Sorry, don’t have a belief in a god. When you’re dead, that’s it.

I am an openly gay pastor in the United Church of Christ. On Feb 16, I received a telephone call asking me to circulate a petition in my congregation to place a constitutional amendment on the California ballot. This amendment, the caller said, is necessary to protect clergy against government efforts to control what is said from pulpits. I pressed the caller about exactly what govt efforts she was speaking of. She rattled off a long list of court rulings related to one clause or the other of the First Amendment. I continued to press her and, actually, drove her to tears (which, in a strange way, I’m kind of proud of!) I went to the website she gave me and was truly alarmed. I am informed about these matters, so know this effort is, well, wrong, not just misguided, but wrong on the facts and the law.

Not once has a govt official ever come into my church building and ordered me to stop saying whatever it is I am saying. You’d think they’d do that when I preach in favor of marriage equality, a view that opposes both state and federal law. But it’s never happened. If it happened, I believe I’d have a First Amendment case on my hands.

The Phelps clan knows exactly what they can and cannot do within the law. Everything they do and say is reprehensible and demonstrably opposed to the teachings of Jesus. But they know how to say it without getting into real legal trouble.

“Our profound national commitment to free and open debate is not a license for the vicious verbal assault that occurred in this case,” Alito wrote. “Mr. Snyder wanted what is surely the right of any parent who experiences such an incalculable loss: to bury his son in peace. But respondents, members of the Westboro Baptist Church, deprived him of that elementary right.”

The whole idea of public purpose behind the protests did not in Alito’s mind negate private and personal damage. I would go further and point out that it is in fact the very private act which is the reason Westboro protests. I like Alito’s thinking here: “In order to have a society in which public issues can be openly and vigorously debated, it is not necessary to allow the brutalization of innocent victims like petitioner.”

So, never have things been more dangerous. Keep fear alive, you chicken.

-Freedom Friar #425, Colbert Nation

Here’s the lesson we learn from the Phelpsters.

Some people are quite explicit about the hatred in their hearts. Bravo to the Phelpsters. at least they’re honest.

That is VERY useful to the people who have the same hatred in their hearts, but prefer to dress it up in its Sunday-go-to-meetin’ drag of “moral concerns” and love-the-sinner. As they will observe about the phelpsters, such obvious hatred is a real turn off to people who wish to be reasonable.

when the traditional marriage people call me and my marriage a threat to marriage, family, faith, children, religion, freedom, and western civilization, they do it with a you-poor-sinner look of deep sorrow on their faces. but they are still willing to lie, distort, and deceive through their pearly white teeth. Their message, however delivered, is no different from the WBC.

You don’t hate anyone. Honestly, you don’t. The Biblical message is all about compassion, about loving your neighbor and all that. You love homosexuals. You really do.You really, really love us.

You just hate our marriage destroying, military endangering, disease spreading, child molesting, morality ruining, religion despising, freedom hating, family attacking,, god blaspheming, sanctity desecrating, same-sex lusting, public fornicating, society wrecking, perverted, disgusting, immoral ways.

And really now, where’s the hate in that?

Amazingly, ALL of that disappears the moment we become hetero, Or find Jesus. Whatever.

Let me repeat. the Phelpsters.at least, are honest in their intentions and methods.

your analysis is spot on