Maryland

Earlier this week, a federal District Court judge in Maryland more than halved a $10.9 million jury verdict against the Westboro Baptist Church, a fundamentalist Christian church in Kansas, and three of its leading members. Among other things, the church publishes a website at "www.godhatesfags.com" and advocates the view that God kills U.S. soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan as punishment for America's tolerance of homosexuality. Westboro Baptist has gained notoriety in recent years for staging protests at the funerals of U.S. soldiers in order to draw attention to its message.

Albert Snyder, a Pennsylvania man whose son was killed in Iraq, sued Westboro Baptist, its pastor Fred W. Phelps, Sr., and members of his congregation after they picketed the funeral of Snyder's son, Matthew, holding up signs with slogans like "God hates you," "Thank God for dead soldiers," and "You're going to hell."   read more »

Following up on my earlier post about the $10.9 million jury verdict against Fred Phelps and the Westboro Baptist Church, I wanted to point our readers in the direction of some excellent commentary on the topic by Eugene Volokh at the Volokh Conspiracy. In a series of posts collected in a single thread, Volokh argues that the intentional infliction of emotional distress and intrusion torts, which are the claims that the jury found liability on, are unconstitutionally overbroad and vague when applied to speech. (More precisely, he argues that these torts, as applied to speech, are unconstitutional unless narrowed by courts to cover only constitutionally unprotected speech like "fighting words," incitement to imminent lawless action, or statements of fact made with the requisite degree of fault, which did not happen in the Phelps case.)

Intrusion is a tort that we've paid particular attention to because of its implication in the newsgathering process. Volokh captures well the constitutional infirmity looming in application of the intrusion tort to Westboro's picketing activities:   read more »

On Wednesday, a federal jury in Maryland handed down a $10.9 million verdict against the Westboro Baptist Church, a fundamentalist Christian church in Kansas that publishes a website at www.godhatesfags.com, on which it disseminates its rabidly anti-homosexual views. Among other things, the church advocates the view that God kills U.S. soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan as punishment for America's tolerance of homosexuality and for the presence of gays in the U.S. military. Westboro Baptist has gained notoriety in recent years for staging protests at the funerals of U.S. soldiers in order to draw attention to its message.

Albert Snyder, a Pennsylvania man whose son was killed in Iraq, sued Westboro Baptist, its pastor Fred W. Phelps, Sr., and members of his congregation after they picketed the funeral of Snyder's son, Matthew, holding up signs with slogans like "God hates you," "Thank God for dead soldiers," and "You're going to hell."

Around the time of the funeral, the church also posted an essay on its website entitled "The Burden of Marine Lance Cpl. Matthew A. Snyder." In the essay, statements indicated that Snyder and his wife “raised [Matthew] for the devil,” “RIPPED that body apart and taught Matthew to defy his Creator, to divorce, and to commit adultery,” “taught him how to support the largest pedophile machine in the history of the entire world, the Roman Catholic monstrosity,” and “taught Matthew to be an idolator.”   read more »