Collision Course.

With a few exceptions, I do not believe in human monsters.  I hesitate to use the word evil when referring to a human being.  (A human being's actions are another thing entirely:  it is quite possible for otherwise decent people to commit atrocities under the right -- or wrong -- circumstances.)  Although I will occasionally tell someone to "go to hell," I don't mean it, nor do I claim to have any knowledge of whom will be allowed to enter heaven in the hereafter.  Eternal punishment and reward are God's doing, not mine; I am not God, and it is blasphemy to assume otherwise.

Nonetheless, I believe Fred Phelps to be evil.

When they picket funerals of service men, he and his followers at the Westboro Baptist "Church" (the quotation marks are deliberate on my part) inflict grievous emotional harm upon people when they are at their most vulnerable: when they are mourning the loss of loved one.  In their demonstrations at the sights of other tragedies (such as at Gunn High School in Palo Alto, California, following the suicide of four students), they show a disregard for human suffering that is monstrous in its scope.  Their heretofore successful strategy of provoking people to attack them, and suing for damages, is abhorrent.  They warp and twist beyond all recognition the God of the Old Testament and the New, creating a picture of a hateful, vengeful diety.  They have the unmitigated gall to call themselves Christians when their behavior is an affront to every word Jesus spoke.

They are currently parties in a case presently before the Supreme Court, involving a lawsuit for damages from the family of a dead soldier whose funeral they picketed.  And -- deep breath -- I cannot tell which side I want the Court to come down on.

The emotional side says this is a no-brainer.  It was a funeral of a soldier, after all, a private event, and the families had a right to bury their kin in peace. Phelps and his followers had no right to be there, perhaps, and allowing the family to sue for intentional infliction of emotional distress is only just.

 The facts in the case were largely undisputed, according to the appeals court:  that the protesters complied with all police instructions about how far they could stand from the funeral.  It was also established at trial that the father did not see the signs until he saw television coverage afterwards.  The attacks on the dead Marine continued on the Westboro Church site.

In its questions to the lawyers at oral arguments, the court seemed far more favorable to lawyers for  the family of the dead Marine than the lawyers for the hate-mongers.

And yet... I am very nervous about creating lines which limit what people may or may not say in public.  I am worried about stifling what may be legitimate free speech. 

For me, it is a case where deeply held beliefs about the inviolability of the First Amendment ran smack into abhorrence at the grief caused by Fred Phelps and Co. and sorrow that families of servicemen who gave their lives in service to their  country have to experience this additional pain.

There have been many times in this country when those who spoke the truth were vilified and subjected to legislation which curtailed what they could say and to whom.  The women's suffrage and the civil rights movements of the 1960s immediately come to mind.  Which is not in any way to compare those righteous causes with the excrement that the Westboro Baptists produce, simply to observe that we need to be extemely careful what precedents are set here.

I will be following this case with a great deal of interest.  I have an odd feeling that, whatever way the Court decides, I will be both satisfied and displeased at the result.