SCOTUS Rules in Favor of Westboro Baptist Church

The Supreme Court has ruled 8-1 in favor of Phelps in Snyder v. Phelps today. Justice Samuel Alito was the lone dissenter.

As you may recall, the Snyder family was claiming the tort of intentional infliction of emotion distress against the Phelps and Westboro Baptist Church for their picketing of a fallen soldier's funeral.

A ruling in favor of Snyder would have opened access to a slippery slope where any speech that could be considered offensive would have been subject to that tort. Instead, the ruling was in favor of Phelps which essentially applies the same principles as Hustler v. Falwell, 485 U.S. 46 (1988) to private individuals.

The Court says that the content of Westboro's picketing is public and not privately targeted as it centers around public issues. Such a distinction is important in determining whether or not the speech in question was targeted at the family of the fallen soldier.

Furthermore,

Westboro had been actively engaged in speaking on the subjects addressed in its picketing long before it became aware of Matthew Snyder, and there can be no serious claim that the picketing did not represent Westboro’s honestly held beliefs on public issues. Westboro may have chosen the picket location to increase publicity for its views, and its speech may have been particularly hurtful to Snyder. That does not mean that its speech should be afforded less than full First Amendment protection under the circumstances of this case.

While I do not agree with the actions of the Phelps family and Westboro Baptist Church, I firmly believe that a ruling in favor of Snyder would have been a dramatic erosion of the protections of the First Amendment.

Keep in mind that the Court also held that such picketing is still subject to state regulations under Clark v. Community for Creative Non-Violence, 468 US 288 (1984). This means that laws that restrict the time and place of these protests (such as no closer than 500 feet, and no later than 1 hour before and no earlier than 1 hour after) are still considered Constitutional so long as they are reasonable.

Snyder also tried to argue that such protests were an intrusion upon seclusion, as the funeral-goers were a "captive audience". However, Westboro stayed well away from the actual funeral and therefore never intruded upon the funeral itself.

I firmly believe that the Supreme Court ruled in the right direction on this case. I know many people will dissent based solely on the fact that it has to do with protesting at a funeral, but those people fail to see the big picture.