Anti-Gay Church Ordered to Pay Millions

Let them have the rights they are given by the constitution.

But, IMO and many others these people really insulted the families of the killed soldiers, and the gays.

Maybe their license to be a "church" should be revoked for 'IMMORAL' behavior.

 

They have their freedom of speech.. Who has taken it away from them?

 

Personally I'd rather see that than a lawsuit

 

i would curbstomp every last one of them if i ever saw these people, i swear on that.

F lawsuits, i'd make sure they can never grow teeth again, it should be legal to kill these ppl.

 

oh trust me man, if i ever come in contact with them, it'll be the last time you hear a news story about'em.

 

While I agree, I also take comfort in the fact that now the church has to cough up 11 million dollars somehow

 

I'm so glad to see courts going against them. To give you a bit of background, the Phelps family is almost entirely lawyers. So what they do is basically entice some poor sap to attack one of them at these protests, and then sue the crap outta the person for everything he's worth. They are all lawyers, and it's usually a pretty open and shut case considering the amount of police present to testify in court, etc.

I knew one of two things would happen eventually; either they would get sued back, or one of them would end up getting killed at a protest. I guess this is the less violent outcome :-/

 

I'll just play devils advocate here, but i'd rather see the laws of the land followed, if beatings were handed down as some sort of mob justice that would make us no better than them

 

Never did I say it was justice
I do however not think a lawsuit is the appropriate measure in such a case.

 

It's kinda like when you see the school bully finally get his ass kicked by someone bigger than him; you don't want to condone it (in that case, violence, in this case, a massive payout for the plantiff), and there was probably a better solution and end to the whole situation, but you can't help getting a slight smirk on your face that someone finally got what was coming to them.

 

That however would make us the civilized people no better than them though, or does this type of violent thinking only apply to this group of people & not those groups that actually cause anyone physical harm?

 

It is the public doing it, not the government
A little roughing up is a bit different than torture, government not following their own laws is it not?

Totally different comparison, not even apples to oranges, more like Suburban to tricyle.

 

I agree, to some extent.

But you've also got to look at the means and the situation, not just the end. What provocation was there?

In this case, a grieving father was attending a funeral for his veteran son. The father wanted neither confrontation, nor a distraction from remembering his fallen son. A church-organized group shows up with signs such as "Thank God for Dead Soldiers."

Did that grieving father deserve that?

Now, let's say the grieving father, and a group of vets from the funeral were to beat the living daylights out of that same group; a church group that shouts profanity while others are trying to remember deceased loved ones.

Would the group of protesters deserve that?

 

The freedom to speak in anybodys funeral, come on...

 

In the laws of the United States, anyway, at least in terms of Supreme Court constructions, "Freedom of Speech" isn't a carte blanche right. Speech that by its nature is designed to result in a violent outbreak is deemed inherently inflammatory, and not protected under the constitution. Such a thing, I would think, will be argued here.

 

I think people often misunderstand what freedom of speech is. it's certainly not a right to say what you want when you want.