I never thought I would back Samuel Alito on the losing side of an 8-1 Supreme Court decision, but there’s a first time for everything. Alito was the lone dissenter in Wednesday’s Supreme Court ruling which declared the Westboro Baptist Church protests at funerals of U.S. soldiers are protected by the First Amendment protection of free speech.
The WBC has become well known this past decade for protesting at funerals of U.S. soldiers and public officials with large signs that say things like “Thank God for dead soldiers,” “God hates your tears” and “Semper fi fags.” They often include young children in their celebrations of innocent deaths.
The First Amendment guarantees freedom of speech; I’m a huge fan of that. But multiple Supreme Court decisions have found obscenity is not protected by the First Amendment. If taunting mourners with the idea that their loved one is in hell isn’t obscene, then graphic public descriptions of sexual acts as the cause of military deaths surely is.
The First Amendment also doesn’t cover “fighting words,” or “words those which by their very utterance inflict injury or tend to incite an immediate breach of the peace” (Chaplinsky v. New Hampshire).
While the WBC protests are technically “peaceful” in the sense that they aren’t assaulting anyone, the protestors are definitely inflicting emotional and psychological injury on anyone who sees the protests, even those who aren’t family members of the deceased. And by being so intentionally controversial, so deliberately confrontational, they are stirring up intense negative emotions in people and certainly inciting a breach of the peace.
But let’s not get caught up in legal intricacies and miss the forest for the trees. The First Amendment is necessary to prevent the government from arbitrarily cracking down on opinions it doesn’t like. It’s not there to allow the WBC to display huge signs thanking God for damning people who died defending America from terrorists.
Yes, freedom of speech is one of the most fundamental and important American rights. But the WBC protestors aren’t adding valid counterpoints to mainstream views. Their hateful displays don’t add to public discourse. They aren’t merely voicing unpopular opinions. No, they are ruthlessly dehumanizing a soldier, his family and anyone who happens to walk by and see the protest.
As Alito said in his dissent, “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.”
Let’s be reasonable here. There’s no way for a bystander to avoid the WBC protests. While they often are forced to be some arbitrary number of feet away from the funerals, they still take place in public and force people to see offensive, obscene, hurtful, peace-breaching material they don’t want to see.
If an individual community wants to allow that garbage, fine, but shame on the Supreme Court for forcing the entire nation to be at the mercy of the WBC.
Coincidentally, this decision came the same day Michael Venyah decided to show up on campus for his annual hate-filled insult fest. Like the WBC, Venyah seems to have a bizarre focus on homosexuality and a desire to personally insult people, singling out people to tell them they’re going to hell.
Venyah (to my knowledge) isn’t protesting at funerals of U.S. soldiers and celebrating their deaths, nor is he creating a huge unavoidable display. I don’t suppose he quite crosses the line the WBC crosses. (See, there is no slippery slope. A reasonable line can be drawn.)
Since he’s not going to be forced away, the best thing to do would be to just ignore him.
Harry Nelson is the managing editor of The Reflector. He can be contacted at managing@reflector.msstate.edu.