In an 8-1 ruling in Snyder v. Phelps, the United States Supreme Court has declared that members of the Westboro Baptist Church have a First Amendment right to air their opposition to policies and laws condoning homosexuality by staging peaceful protests during high-profile military funerals.

As Chief Justice John Roberts declared, “Speech is powerful. It can stir people to action, move them to tears of both joy and sorrow, and—as it did here—inflict great pain. On the facts before us, we cannot react to that pain by punishing the speaker.”

The Rutherford Institute had filed an amicus brief with the Supreme Court urging the Court to “protect the equality of ideas in the public square,” even when those ideas may be disagreeable to society at large. The Rutherford Institute’s amicus brief in Snyder v. Phelps is available at www.rutherford.org. [Editor’s note: the original URL (link) referenced is no longer valid, so the link has been removed.]

“The Supreme Court’s decision is a major victory for free speech,” said John W. Whitehead, president of The Rutherford Institute. “Robust free speech—even of the extreme variety—in the open marketplace of ideas is one of the few hopes we have as citizens, and it is something we must protect. Or to extend what Judge K. Hall once observed about the Fourth Amendment to the First Amendment and its safeguards for free speech: ‘One who would defend the Fourth Amendment must share his foxhole with scoundrels of every sort, but to abandon the post because of the poor company is to sell freedom cheaply. It is a fair summary of history to say that the safeguards of liberty have often been forged in controversies involving not very nice people.’”

Members of the Westboro Baptist Church (WBC), which was established by Fred Phelps Sr. in Topeka, Kansas in 1955, have increasingly staged public demonstrations in recent years in conjunction with relatively high-profile funerals, particularly military funerals, to assert their religious belief that God hates homosexuality and is punishing America for its tolerance of homosexuality.

In 2006, Albert Snyder sued Phelps, the church, and several church members for demonstrating near his son’s military funeral in Maryland. Snyder’s son Matthew, a Marine, was killed in Iraq on March 3, 2006. A subsequent trial in federal district court resulted in a jury verdict against WBC in the amount of $10.9 million, which was later reduced to $2.1 million by the court.

On appeal, the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals reversed the lower court’s ruling, holding that notwithstanding the distasteful and repugnant nature of the defendants’ expression, it is constitutionally protected speech.

In urging the Supreme Court to protect the free speech rights of all Americans to engage in peaceful protest, no matter how disagreeable the nature or content of that protest may be, The Rutherford Institute pointed out that the members of the WBC “continue the historic American tradition of public protest on a matter of public concern in the most open forum—on a public street where the announced funeral and the activities of others participating in the event were part of a milieu of public expression.”

Furthermore, attorneys argued, the protest was entirely peaceful and in full compliance with all time, place and manner restrictions imposed by local authorities.