Freedom of speech runs wild

By Gayle S. Fixler

Can the grieving family of a fallen Marine bury their son without being harassed by crusaders who oppose the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq? The Supreme Court will arbitrate a dispute which pits free speech against a family's right to have a dignified burial.

Freedom of speech is indeed guaranteed by the First Amendment of the Constitution.  It is one of the privileges that distinguishes America from many other nations. Our forefathers fought–literally to the death–to secure their and future generations, the right to any act of seeking, receiving and conveying information and ideas without limitation or censorship. Yet, the founders of the Constitution could not predict the far-reaching implications of this civil right, nor accurately foresee the abuse of this freedom and immeasurable pain that it can incur when freedom of speech collides with another right – that of familial privacy and religious ritual.

This is highlighted in the case of Marine Lance Cpl. Matthew Snyder who died on March 3, 2006 while deployed in Iraq.  He was 20 years old. On the day his body was returned to his family for burial in Westminster, MD, members of the Kansas-based Westboro Baptist Church (WBC) announced their intent to protest at the funeral.  According to church founder Pastor Fred Phelps, the group protests the funerals of dead soldiers “because they are God's punishment for America's sins, including tolerance of gay men and lesbians.”

Established in 1955 as an Old School Baptist Church, the group “adheres to the teachings of the Bible, preaches against all form of sin and insists that the sovereignty of God and the doctrines of grace be taught and expounded publicly to all men.” Members have conducted hundreds of contentious demonstrations nationwide including those at military funerals such as Cpl. Snyder’s. The fallen have been killed by God "in Iraq/Afghanistan in righteous judgment against an evil nation,” according to the group’s Web site.

WBC members traveled from Kansas to Cpl. Snyder’s Maryland funeral and carried signs that read: God Hates Fags, Thank God for dead soldiers, God hates the USA/Thank God for September 11 and Thank God for IEDs (improvised explosive devices). Jeers and shouting compounded the harassment.

WBC’s actions were so offensive that Cpl. Snyder’s father Albert filed a civil lawsuit citing invasion of privacy and intentional infliction of emotional pain. In 2007, a jury found in favor of the Snyders, awarding them $5 million. The WBC appealed and last September, the 4th Circuit Court of Appeals overturned the decision, citing freedom of speech which protected the use of the protest signs found to be “imaginative and hyperbolic rhetoric.”

The reversal stunned the Snyders.“Basically, what this court has done is taken away our right to bury anybody. They didn’t even consider any of my rights. It was all about free speech for them,” Mr. Snyder said.

In March, that same court ordered Mr. Snyder to pay $16,510 of the almost $100,000 in legal fees incurred by the WBC during this legal battle – a sum that Mr. Snyder, with a reported $43,000 annual salary, can ill afford.  Conservative political commentator Bill O’Reilly has pledged to cover that cost.

This case should not and cannot be about American reaction to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. It is about the rights of a family burying their son with dignity-an American soldier deployed to Iraq to protect among other things ironically, the freedom of speech that WBC members invoke as their own.

The WBC's use of a funeral to spew hateful tirades is unconscionable. By targeting a grieving family during its darkest moments and aftermath, WBC abuses free speech and violates the sanctity of others’ rituals and beliefs.

We should be morally outraged yet refrain from defining WBC members as crazy or sick because by doing so, we imply that they are not cognizant of and cannot be held accountable for their abhorrent actions. Although church members appear to be protected under Maryland law requiring protesters to stay 1,000 feet away from a funeral (WBC protestors reportedly complied)–does exercising their freedom supersede that of a family’s to bury its dead with dignity and without disruption?

By bringing suit, Mr. Snyder hopes “to bring an end to the reign of terror and abuse that WBC members inflicted upon the grieving families of U.S. service members killed in defense of our nation...the defendants (WBC) in this suit have sought to attack the memory of our departed heroes, to strip their loved ones of their dignity, and to use abuse and intimidation as a tool for preventing surviving family members from reaching closure over their loss," according to the matthewsnyder.org Web site.

Mr. Phelps’s daughter, Shirley Phelps Roper, an attorney, wrote in an e-mail to Pennsylvania’s WGAL-TV News 8, “We look forward to preaching to the Supreme Court...There is one reason that we are engaged in litigation with that dead child’s father.  That child was raised for the devil and we plainly, according to the requirements of our God, said that.  It is not unlawful in doomed American to do what we did and the 4th Circuit said just that.”

The U.S. Supreme Court has agreed to hear the case in the fall and rule on whether the WBC’s message is protected under the First Amendment or limited by religious rights, privacy of the bereaved and respect for the deceased.

If the court’s interpretation of the law fails to find in his favor, it is signaling the American public that “you have no rights to bury anyone with dignity and respect,” Mr. Snyder said in an interview with News 8 reporter Jere Gish.

-Gayle S. Fixler is a freelance writer in Washington, DC, a member of Soldiers’ Angels, the USO of Metropolitan Washington and a volunteer visitor at The Washington DC Veterans’ Administration Medical Center Nursing Home.