Sharing free speech foxhole with someone you despise

Some words are so repulsive, tasteless, crude, abusive and loathsome as to be indefensible. Every sane and civil person is obligated to reject and counter them with forceful disdain and opprobrium.

Such is the nature of the vile language uttered by members of the Topeka, Kan., Phelps family cult known as the Westboro Baptist Church at the funeral of Matthew Snyder, a Marine killed in battle in Iraq in 2006.

The cult has some sort of obsession with homosexuality and misdirects its "fire and brimstone" passionate hate at the U.S. military, apparently because of its "don't ask, don't tell" policy. Outside of Snyder's solemn funeral, while his family celebrated the young soldier's life and mourned his passing, church members carried signs reading "God Hates the USA," "Fag troops," "Semper fi fags," and "Thank God for dead soldiers."

This was just one of many funerals at which the group displayed such clueless and classless behavior, but it is the one that prompted a lawsuit against the Westboro Baptists that is scheduled to be heard this fall by the U.S. Supreme Court.

The father of the fallen Marine sued in Maryland state court for, among other things, invasion of privacy by intrusion upon seclusion, intentional infliction of emotional distress and civil conspiracy. He won a jury verdict of $8 million.

The words are not defensible. The right to say them -- and face the consequences -- is.

People should oppose the words. Government should stay the hell out of it.

For American society to progress, the marketplace of ideas must be free to function, allowing ideas to take wing or deservedly crash and burn. Government -- the courts, the legislators, the executive branch -- must stand aside because it cannot tell which ideas are best. It was our overly revered government that gave us the various Alien and Sedition acts, Jim Crow laws, Dred Scott, jailing of Copperhed editors, Missouri Executive Order 44, the Smith Act, HUAC and Japanese internment camps.

The 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals threw out the verdict in Synder v. Phelps as unconstitutional under the First Amendment right of free speech.

The appeal to the highest court in the land has attracted a stampede of politicians anxious to curry favor with those justifiably outraged by the Westboro antics. Amicus briefs have been filed by 48 attorneys general, including Nevada's own Catherine Cortez Masto, who finds time and money for this, but not to oppose ObamaCare, as the governor ordered. Forty U.S. senators -- including Nevada's own Harry Reid, who is running for re-election -- have signed on as well.

In a news release trumpeting Nevada joining the fray, Masto said, "Honoring our war dead is a tradition that stretches for generations and across cultures and national borders. Those who are willing to sacrifice their lives to protect our freedoms deserve our admiration and respect and their grieving families should be spared the added emotional trauma of a political protest at their loved one's military funeral."

In a letter announcing the senators' amicus filing, Reid said, "The brief will argue that the law should continue to protect, as it long has, the rights of all private persons -- including the families of fallen soldiers -- to mourn their loved ones at a peaceful and solemn funeral."

For the record, lest one's imagination fill in facts not in evidence, the Westboro protesters complied with local ordinances and police directions with respect to the distance from the church they had to maintain. The father never saw them until later that day, when he saw a television news program showing the funeral protest. He later learned a church member had written something on a website and found it with a Google search.

It is not as though they marched down the aisles of St. John's Catholic Church in Westminster, Md., or drowned out the eulogy with bullhorns. It is the content of the speech that is in question, not the disruptive manner of delivery.

In its ruling, the 4th Circuit recalled the words of its "distinguished colleague," Judge Kenneth Hall, writing about the protections of the Fourth Amendment instead of the First, but equally applicable.

Hall noted judges defending the Constitution "must sometimes share (their) foxhole with scoundrels of every sort, but to abandon the post because of the poor company is to sell freedom cheaply. It is a fair summary of history to say that the safeguards of liberty have often been forged in controversies involving not very nice people."

As Voltaire once wrote, "Think for yourselves and let others enjoy the privilege to do so too."

Thomas Mitchell is editor of the Review-Journal and writes about the role of free speech, free press and access to public meetings and records. He may be contacted at 383-0261 or via e-mail at tmitchell@ reviewjournal.com. Read his blog at lvrj.com/blogs/mitchell.