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Westboro Baptist Church Soldier's Funerals Summary

1091 Words5 Pages

The Westboro Baptist Church member are proponents of extremist Christian ideology. Their first amendment rights should not be violated solely to shield others from the Church’s message. Therein the church should be permitted to protest soldier’s funerals. According to court records taken during the Snyder v. Phelps case, the protest held at Lance Corporal Matthew Snyder’s funeral was both legal and constitutional. The Court interpreted the “content, form and context” of the message to if any rights were violated. The Supreme court determined that since the signs were displaying a public message and not a personal attack it fell within the rights of the church members to display the placards(Richards). Had the signs been purely about deceased …show more content…

Whether laws intend to limit the offensive power of a minority or protect a minority from attacks, either way rights are lost. In the words of Roger Baldwin, founder of the civil liberties union, “In order to defend the people you like, you have to defend the people you hate.” Roger Baldwin’s statement indicates that if we limit the free speech of one group we ultimately limit our own freedoms. The first Amendment clearly states the limiting of any groups right is unconstitutional, “make no law … abridging the freedom of speech.” The basis behind not allowing the government to define free speech allows Americans to create their own social order and among themselves determine what is acceptable. The Westboro Baptist Church has received vast amounts of criticism for their picketing. In Louis Theroux’s documentary about The Westboro Baptist Church, a child protester is hit in the head with a soft drink, and the picketers are frequently chased away from their picketing. This is what regulations should be placed upon a group, regulations enforced by fellow Americans. This does not express that children should have drinks hurled at their head in the instance of a disagreement. However, the government should not be the ones placed with the authority to dictate the span of Americans free

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Snyder Vs. Phelps From 2006: Westboro Baptist Church

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Analytical Research Paper The case Snyder vs Phelps from 2006 deals with the Westboro Baptist church, which protests at military funerals to express free-speech in the form of protests. Fred Phelps and others church members went to Lance Cpl. Matthew A. Snyder’s funeral to protest their religious views. When protesting Fred Phelps and his followers did not disrupt the funeral at all and it wasn’t until Lance Corporal Snyder’s father and friends watched the media that night that a problem occurred.

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“By the mid nineties, the issue couldn’t exclude religious speakers from the list” The new look of religious cases allowed for people to go against the law of religious freedom. - pg 113 “But the stat denied a request heightened the differences between them.” The law of freedom of speech works for many terrible groups of people, making them question if they are actually doing the right thing. Support:

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For example being on a plane and yelling bomb or being in a crowded room and yelling fire when there is no bomb or fire. Yelling those things will cause people to panic and can cause problems and might injure people. Everything else should be protected under the first amendment. A quote from Benjamin Franklin, “Without Freedom of Thought, there can be no such Thing as Wisdom; and no such Thing as publick Liberty, without Freedom of Speech; which is the Right of every Man, as far as by it, he does not hurt or control the Right of another: And this is the only Check it ought to suffer, and the only Bounds it ought

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One of the most remembered and terrifying moments in the history of the united states is 9/11. An Islamic terrorist group coordinated 4 attacks on the morning of September 11, 2001. This resulted in around 3000 casualties including bystanders firefighters medics and police officers. For a group to hold up signs that state thank god for 9/11 and thank god for dead soldiers is horrible. That did not stop the Westboro baptist church led by Fred Phelps and his followers for gathering at a funeral of one lance corporal Matthew Snyder who was killed in the line of duty.

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