Mark My WOrds it will be overturned.
Larry Mohr
Kudos Larry. You were right.
Phelps' hate speech, as sick as it is, is constitutionally protected speech.
Well, exactly what Phelps specifically said, however, as the judge said, the judge couldn't find that the speech specifically "damaged" the Snyders because they couldn't rule that what they shouted and what the signs said were tied to Snyder per se.
"As a threshold matter, as utterly distasteful as these signs are, they involve matters of public concern, including the issue of homosexuals in the military, the sex-abuse scandal within the Catholic Church, and the political and moral conduct of the United States and its citizens," Judge Robert King wrote in the appeals court's opinion.
"Additionally, no reasonable reader could interpret any of these signs as asserting actual and objectively verifiable facts about Snyder or his son," he wrote.
My position was based on the assumption that damage was incurred by the Snyders and that was why the ruling was in favor of the Snyders originally.
It doesn't mean that Phelps (or anybody else for that matter) enjoys total immunity on what he says on the basis of free speech.
Phelps is smart enough to make his rants more general in nature.
