Solution to this should be simple. No matter where the Phelps family goes, cities should assign extra police to handle security and bill the family for creating the enviornment for in which it required additional police standing by as they are so hated, thousands of counter protesters show up. Even if they dont show you, you can easily cite examples from other cities that have had thousands counter protest that family of disturbed hateful jerks.

Then followup and threaten a boycott to any car rental companies that rent to the family. Force them to actually drive from event to event.

As a fag, I'm actually heartened by the ruling: protecting free speech is the priority here.

In addition, I often have the feeling that extremist haters like Phelps actually help gays in the end. Average straights who might not normally think about the issues see Phelps' extremeism and think, "Do I want to be associated with the likes of him?" Phelps has probably won more converts to gay rights than to the WBC.

Since the creepy and Orwellian "Free Speech Zones" have been held constitutional, can't the Phelps scum just be squirreled away in one of those?

Let's use the erosion of our rights for good!

@2 my thoughts exactly, I have similar feeling about the WBC driving many Americans away from organized religion as well, not wanting to associate their "god" with Phelps' "god".....hopefully it's a start, a slow progression towards truth and Atheism

"Phelps has probably won more converts to gay rights than to the WBC." Good point, Clayton, I'd imagine you're right, as I think the only people in the Phelps clan are there by blood or marriage.

However, I do wish the States were able to differentiate between free speech and hate speech. As defined in Canada, hate speech--that which is designed to incite violence toward a group of people--will get you fined, deported, or thrown in jail.

You can keep your whackadoodle laws up there, Canuck. I like the way things are here much more.

@3 I still have a length of the police tape that defined our "Free Speech Zone" at the protest when GWB came to my hometown. I lay it in a circle around myself like the magic sand in LOST whenever I'm afraid my rights are going to be attacked.

I feel your pain, 5280, it's just so freakin' civilized up here...no toddlers with loaded firearms, no freedom-lovin' teens wearing hate speech T-shirts, and no newscasters telling us about how Obama was raised by gay Muslims in Kenya...Oy. Every day is a veritable trial and tribulation. Good thing we have better donuts, at least, eh?

I'm with Clayton @2. I'm gay, and find WBC some of the most loathsome people on earth. But the supremes were correct in their interpretation of the Constitution. Free political speech can't be restricted just because we don't like the message or the messenger.

i'm a professional videographer and i was surprised by the way the media sensationalizes these protests. i posted a video on youtube here: http://youtu.be/vkT8oMw6X88?hd=1

westboro baptist church rallies are gay pride rallies in disguise. now, i've never seen military pride rallies show up to counter protest but i suppose nobody really likes war anyway.

actually, i'd be willing to bet that if someone protested the war at soldier's funerals, nobody would really give a shit.

*rambles off*

Eventually the Phelps gang will piss off the wrong grieving family, and that house of incest they call a church will become a crater.

@ Canuck,

We gots hordes of braying, psychopathic, hate-crazed liars shooting up Congresses and day-cares then lecturing the public on holy gun rights and that's the way we likes it GAWDAMMIT!!!

@Original Andrew: Preach it, bruthah! At least you unnerstand that not nobody needs birth control when you got that natural selecter, the Glock, in everuh closet! Babies, guns, and Jesus, YO!

Phelps and Co. don't give a crap about homosexuality or Jesus. They're a lawsuit factory, pure and simple. They exist solely to provoke free-speech cases, in which they always win, often with large dollar judgements. Note that the only special training any of them have isn't religious, it's legal.

As I hate with a passion neverending the WBC ideas and behaviors, some of the individual people involved (a combination of ignorant and bigoted) plus a two of them that I actually loath, I would have to swallow my bile and defend their right to say loathsome, hateful bull shit about me and my sisters and brothers.

and I do on occasion regret my ethics and morals on that, but that is it.

Hate speech is free speech.

you can call someone horrible names. I am allowed to not listen to you. you can be John Galliano and say that Jews deserved what they got from Hitler, Natalie portman can publically denounce you and refuse to ever wear an article of clothing you ever are involved with again.

The trick is to have other voices so that hate speech is not the only free speech.

I was particularly struck by Sarah Palin's tweet denouncing WBC but then saying that you arent allowed to mention god in the public arena.

Sarah, WBC IS involking God. Just not a God I want to have anything to do with

Everyone should read this:
Fred Phelps is a Con Man.

The WBC don't really espouse the statements they use to enrage people. It's a scam. They use those statements to enrage people into action against WBC so they can sue them. That's how they make money.

This is their chosen (cynical) career, not a religious viewpoint. They are a business, using people's emotions and the legal system to their advantage.

I have to agree with Canuck. I love my American friends and fam, but you people are weird. This is harassment. They should be thrown in jail.

@15 "Hate speech is free speech."

So, how do reconcile that to the anti-bullying programs schools have? How do you feel about the gay kids who committed suicide last fall? Should they be tormented by bullies, no holds barred, because to do otherwise would be a violation of a bully's right to free speech?

If free speech is good, and hate speech *is* free speech, then things should be pretty great in general in the States, right? You guys should have a greater, wider dialogue than we do in Canada, right? What I see, however, is that politicians and newscasters, using their god-given right to free/hate speech, foment a culture of violence that leads to democrats being shot in the head and gay teenagers who hang themselves rather than spend another day listening to wonderful, terrific free speech. This is working out so well for you? Really?

It's been a long-established principle that free speech can be abridged if it incites violence or rioting (e.g., yelling "Fire" in a crowded theatre, or publicly advocating homicide). Ergo, if you want to stop WBC from protesting, start a riot every time they protest. If a few of them get pummeled senseless with their signs, oh well.

Personally, I still think Michael Moore had the best solution to the Phelps problem in The Awful Truth - following them around with the big pink bus full of drag queens.

@15 I really have to disagree with you on this one, Canuck. How do anti-bullying programs abridge free/hate speech rights? I’m no expert in these programs, but I don’t see how teaching students about the consequences of bullying and how not to be a bully abridge free speech rights. I think they’re excellent things and I don’t see the conflict.

The good caused by free speech isn’t a polite society, it’s a society where you get to say what you want, regardless of how unpopular your beliefs are. That is the good. I really fucking hate oligarchs, I really fucking hate Wall Street, I really fucking hate the lying, spineless, corporate lackeys that represent us in government, and I’m really glad they don’t have the authority to shut me up just for saying so.

@ Canuck,

You Canuckistanis just don't get it, do you? What with your Governor General, and your hockey and your laws against demanding the violent mass-murders of minority groups. Hate speech is free speech and free speech is American speech, and everything Americans say is for FREEDUM!

Therefore, when our next divinely-appointed Reublican Preznit Mike Fuckabee ascends to the throne and issues his holy proclamation that all hummuhsexuals must be exterminated immediately, well he's just exercising his gawd-given First Amendment free speech rights.

And when the army seals the borders and begins a blood-drenched massacre that makes Mai Lai look like Sesame Street, well they're just exercising their Second Amendment rights.

Isn't the real question why do you hate FREEDUM GAWDAMMIT?

Ah, OuterCow, I'm just trying to point out that there's a difference between free speech and hate speech. The way we define it here is that it is speech that incites violence toward a person or group of people. It would be the difference bewteen someone having the right to write an editorial about why people should be able to exercise their religious freedom by discriminating against gays, because homosexuality is wrong in the eyes of the lord (a month ago in the Calgary Herald), and writing an editorial saying gays should be put to death for their sins against god...one is opinion, and although I'd disagree with it, you'd (hypothetically) be able to say it, the other incites violence.

As far as the bullying in schools goes, if you tell someone they can't call someone else a faggot, are you hindering their right to free speech? Do you just say, "Well, you guys really shouldn't call other kids names, but the constitution guarantees your right to do so if you choose"? Should a bully be able to corner a kid and call him a faggot repeatedly without intervention? At what point does your right to free speech get overridden by my right to not be harassed? I realize it isn't always cut and dried, but this idea that you have a huge umbrella of "free speech," that allows people to potentially picket outside of LGBT Teen Youth Groups and yell at them to kill themselves? There is a line, and that crosses it. It's not like we're Iran up here, we have a pretty free and easy discourse, we even get to make fun of our elected officials on This Hour Has 22 Minutes, we just draw the line in a different place than you do in the States as far as how harmful our message can be.

And if I may be so bold (being from your shining shores originally, and having experienced both), I think there's a bit of Kool Aid drinking going on in the States, that if you focus on how much "freedom" you have, and how great it is (no hate speech laws, virtually no gun laws, no universal health care), you won't think too much about the other countries (Canada, Sweden, Norway, Denmark, etc.) that have more "restrictions," but--perhaps?--a higher quality of life.

**still planning on doing shots with you at sloghappy one of these days, yo.

i know that this is the right outcome, but it just disgusts me to see these horrible, cruel people walk away with victory. i was really hoping they'd find a way to harness them on harassment or privacy infringement or something - anything at all to get them to shut the fuck up and go away to let grieving families mourn in peace.

@Original Andrew
Why do I hate freedum so much? Because I am jealous...there it is, I've admitted it. I WANT to live in a country where the streets run with blood (do you have any idea how good that is for the complexion? wasn't there a queen who bathed in blood to soften her skin?) I am jealous of the homosexys, they seem to enjoy sex far too much, and set an unfair example for our poor, straight husbands, who keep saying "Well, Ted had it twice yesterday, what is the matter with you, honey?" (gay marriage is ruining my LIFE!) But most important of all, the real source of my jealousy, is that I fear Canada will never have a Prime Minister who sends out holiday cards with the entire family dressed in vertical stripes.
Damn you, Original Andrew.

@ Canuck

I KNEW IT!!!!!!!!!!!!111!!!!

And all freedums aside, you seem to be implying that there's a certain level of intellectual sophistication, empathy, and mature, rational emotional development present that would allow the sheeples of this sadistic and deeply stupid kuntree to appreciate the fact that words can be just as deadly as bullets. Trust me, hunnie, there isn't.

@5: I wouldn't want to see a Canadian-style hate speech law here in the U.S. The reason is our government is too beholden to conservative religious types. Enact an anti hate speech law, and pretty soon it'd be illegal hate speech to say God doesn't exist or the earth is over 6,000 years old.

BTW, ever notice that other Christian groups rarely bother to protest the Phelpses? They may not like their methods, but they're A-OK with their message.

@Original Andrew.....sigh, you called me *hunnie*....blush :)

Deadlier at times, I'd say. Most people wouldn't attempt suicide or need years of counselling if they got shot in the foot, true? And did I mention our donuts?? Come up and visit any time...

I disagree with the court. What the Phelps clan does to soldiers' families should be classified as HARASSMENT, and they should be required to take their hateful bullshit out of earshot of funerals. Spewing hateful things at mourners, who are emotionally vulnerable, is cruel and the government should not allow it.

@22 Well we do have Brandenburg v. Ohio, which allows the government to punish inflammatory speech if it is directed at inciting and likely to incite imminent lawless action. The big difference betwixt our countries seeming to be (to this utterly untrained legal scholar) the imminence factor. I like having the right to at least say that I think the entire board of directors of Goldmann Sachs should be lynched, since sadly that prospect doesn’t appear to be very imminent.

As for the school bullying, that seems like harassment to me, and offenders should be (and are, in safe schools with good employees) disciplined for such actions that escalate all the way up to expulsion or possible criminal charges depending on the circumstance. Harassment is a crime, we can charge people with it. The point at which my free speech rights get overridden by your right not to be harassed is when I’m proven guilty of criminal harassment.

And it’s thinking and caring about how important our freedoms are that enrages me when no one is punished for illegal wire-tapping, permanent detention w/o trial, or assassination by presidential decree of American citizens (or anyone for that matter). It’s thinking about how my government infringes on my rights in such vile ways that makes me yearn for Norwegian citizenship at times.

**Of course! And I plan to be thoroughly drunk under the table. Drunken echo chambers can get real boring after all, and I love a good argument betwixt friends.

After visiting friends in Norway, OuterCow, I'd say yes to the little prawn and mayo sandwiches, and a big hella no to the aquavit...bleh. I am going to have to practice my drinking games and drink milk for a week before even attempting sloghappy...but it will be worth it.

@32: Patriot Guard Riders.

I'm thankful for the Westboro Baptist bunch. You can blame my glass half-full nature or the fact that I like Aquavit (Sorry, Canuck), but they are doing good with the misery the cause. Don't get me wrong, I hate what they say and their cruelty. But, they reveal a lunacy in religious worship. Other's may disagree, but I don't often hear their message or actions being frowned on by their fellow Christians and I think it is because they like the message for the most part, just maybe not how they go about announcing it. Maybe, it is easy to let the Westboro bunch be the "bad guys"? So, I am grateful for the connection between the two. And, I hope that future generations think long and hard, very critically, as to whether they want to be part of any institution that promotes that kind of blind compliance to anything. As much as I hate to see such cruelty wielded as a weapon, I prefer it to come with both barrels and in the light of day. Maybe, I have too much faith in Newton's Third Law?

Cheers!