cnn.com — Westboro Baptist Church, the group led by Fred Phelps made infamous by its website www.godhatesfags.com, has been ordered by a Maryland court to pay $2.9 million to a grieving father who sued in response to their picketing of his son's funeral, a soldier killed in Iraq.
Oct 31, 2007 View in Crawl 4
blacklabelsarNov 1, 2007
That's some tortured logic. Hating oppresion, or oppressors, for example, would not make someone equal to someone hating blacks or gays or fill-in-the-blank. Someone who hates Nazis is not just as bad as Nazis are they?
pakeNov 2, 2007
Like I said, the problem is this: At what point do you call what a protester says as "harmful"? Calling Bush "Hitler" is technically just as harmful as calling someone "gay" now-a-days. Honestly I don't even got to the "do away with juries" part or the "mob lynching". All I'm saying is, at what point do we start considering something not within the boundary of "Freedom of Speech"? Do you want America to follow in Germany's footsteps and limit people's rights to speech severely? Are you okay with giving the government more power over what you're able to say? I sure as hell am not, even if I have to deal with "hate speech" occasionally.
soccerman90Nov 2, 2007
does the father and the family not have the right to have a funeral without a bunch of crazy, gay hating, bastards protesting and spewing hate?
wellyukNov 3, 2007
From a man
grey580Nov 9, 2007
No it's not ok to torture people.Let me rephrase that. I'd just kick their ass.
phillesh69Nov 30, 2007
Oh, thanks for clarifying the first amendment for me. I always thought "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press [...]" meant that all speech was free. I didn't realize there was such a classification of "free speech" which only certain types of words are free, while there is another classification called "hate speech".I wonder why the writers of the constitution didn't just say so, that there was a distinct group of speech that was fair game for regulation and prohibition.
blazesboyApr 3, 2010
The verdict was overturned a couple days ago. Of course civil judgments have to do with Constitutional rights. What an odd thing to say that they don't. And it's really neither selfish nor arrogant to not read 800 comments before posting. But I get why someone wouldn't like my comment. I find that people are pretty selective about when they think the First Amendment ought to apply. Did you like what was said? Then it applies. Did you dislike what was said? Then it doesn't apply.
mrurcApr 3, 2010
No, actually, I *don't* dislike what you said. I disliked your arrogance and in fact, your continued arrogance on this subject. You have to get the last word in on a thread that's 2 1/2 years old on a site that I haven't logged into for years. The fact of the matter is, civil judgments happen all the time for speech and just about every time, the 1st Amendment is the defense.Now then, instead of digging up some old post that made you mad 2 1/2 years go, how about you actually attempt to comprehend the point from the view of someone other than yourself.Oh that's right. Your posts have shown that you are incapable.Seriously? My comment made you that mad? That you remembered it now? Do you often take such offense at people telling you that your redundant claim is, in fact redundant?Get over yourself before doing stuff like this to justify your claim that you aren't "selfish and arrogant."