{"id":467,"date":"2010-10-06T18:49:59","date_gmt":"2010-10-07T00:49:59","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/sebersole.wordpress.com\/?p=467"},"modified":"2010-10-06T18:49:59","modified_gmt":"2010-10-07T00:49:59","slug":"supreme-court-wrestles-with-despicable-speech","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ebersolemedia.com\/blog\/supreme-court-wrestles-with-despicable-speech\/","title":{"rendered":"Supreme Court Wrestles with Despicable Speech"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>We all know that most speech is protected by the First Amendment of the Constitution. There are a few exception, e.g., obscenity, defamation (libel and slander), and incitement to\u00a0imminent\u00a0lawless action. But the general consensus is that the First Amendment also protects crazy and hateful ideas like those espoused by Fred Phelps, who, with his small group of followers, pickets\u00a0military\u00a0funerals and spews hateful rhetoric about military deaths being divine retribution for America’s tolerance of gays.<\/p>\n

In Snyder v. Phelps, the father of a slain soldier is asking the Supreme Court to rule against Phelps and speech that includes the waving signs outside the funerals \u00a0of a fallen serviceman\u00a0that proclaim, “God Hates America” and “God Hates Fags” and “Thank God for Dead Soldiers.”<\/p>\n

The road to the Supreme Court involved decisions both for and against Phelps.
\nSnyder sued Phelps and his followers for “defamation, invasion of privacy, and intentional infliction of emotional distress.” Snyder was awarded nearly $11M in damages in the original court case. Phelps appealed and the damages were reduced to $5M. Then a federal appellate court overturned the decision, thus setting up the battle in the Supreme Court.<\/p>\n

Support for the families of fallen soldiers is widespread among veterans groups. Also, politicians from both the right and the left have spoken out in favor of a ruling that would restrict this sort of speech. However, there are plenty of folks, e.g., the ACLU and most media companies,\u00a0on the other side of the issue who are holding their noses while voicing support for a decision that would allow Phelps and his followers to continue their antics.<\/p>\n

Whose side are YOU on?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

We all know that most speech is protected by the First Amendment of the Constitution. There are a few exception, e.g., obscenity, defamation (libel and slander), and incitement to\u00a0imminent\u00a0lawless action. But the general consensus is that the First Amendment also protects crazy and hateful ideas like those espoused by Fred Phelps, who, with his small … <\/p>\n

Continue reading “Supreme Court Wrestles with Despicable Speech”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,18,22],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-467","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-1st-amendment","category-politics","category-regulation"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ebersolemedia.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/467","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ebersolemedia.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ebersolemedia.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ebersolemedia.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ebersolemedia.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=467"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/ebersolemedia.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/467\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ebersolemedia.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=467"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ebersolemedia.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=467"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ebersolemedia.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=467"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}