The Supreme Court ruled 8-1 Wednesday in favor of a controversial Kansas church’s infamous funeral protests, citing the First Amendment.
A UF free speech advocacy group supported the decision.
The Marion B. Brechner First Amendment Project, which aims to address free-speech issues by filing legal briefs in court cases, authoring scholarly articles, presenting speeches and papers and testifying before legislative bodies, filed a brief to the Supreme Court in July in support of the church.
“Our brief supported the group’s right to speak, not its underlying viewpoint,” said Clay Calvert, the group’s director. “And that’s an important distinction.”
The case, Snyder v. Phelps, came about when seven of the church’s members traveled to Maryland to protest the funeral of Marine Lance Cpl. Matthew Snyder using signs that read, “Thank God for Dead Soliders,” “Fags Doom Nations,” “America is Doomed,” and “You’re Going To Hell,” according to the case syllabus.
At no point during the protest did the picketers cross onto property where the funeral was being held. They stood 1,000 feet away on public property, chanting Bible verses and holding their inflammatory signs.
The court stated in its ruling that the protesters were making statements pertaining to public issues.
“The funeral setting does not alter that conclusion,” U.S. Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts wrote in the decision.
But Calvert said it was an open-and-shut case for the Supreme Court, as evidenced by the near-unanimous vote.
“The First Amendment is not there to protect majority, popular, happy speech,” Calvert said. “The First Amendment is designed to protect minority and dissenting viewpoints. There’s no need for the First Amendment if it only protected speech that the majority likes.”
