Phelps (Westboro) ordered to pay $2.9 million to family of gay U.S. Marine

[Lone_Star_Dem]

BALTIMORE, Oct 31 (Reuters) - A jury on Wednesday ordered a Kansas church to pay $2.9 million in compensatory damages to relatives of a gay U.S. Marine after church members cheered his death at his funeral.

The jury in federal court determined that the Westboro Baptist Church based in Topeka, and three of its principals had invaded the privacy of the dead man's family and inflicted emotional distress when they protested at his funeral last year.

The soldier's death was God's punishment on America for tolerating homosexuality, the church's members said.

Marine Lance Cpl. Matthew Snyder died in combat in Iraq in March 2006. The Westboro Church was sued by his father, Albert Snyder of York, Pennsylvania. The case was the first civil suit against the church, which has demonstrated at some 300 military funerals in the last two years.

http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/N31342251.htm

[StrongBad]

1. Awesome!!!

The Phelps clan are pretty much the bottom of the barrel of humanity in my opinion.

[hobbit709]

2. The hard part is making them pay up.

[ccpup]

5. easy

they own property and land they can seize and sell and Phelps, et al must have some kind of income they're able to garnish if necessary.

[DFW]

6. Jail them for contempt until they do.

I hope it's a life sentence.

[izquierdista]

11. But $2.9 million will buy a lot of screws to tighten down on them

Couldn't happen to a nicer bunch. Well, actually it did a few years ago when a large judgment effectively wiped out a white-supremacist organization.

[NC_Nurse]

3. Good.

Screw Phelps and his nutbag family.

[Disturbed]

8. Of course, that ruling will be appealed.

That Appeal will take another year or more & be reduced. These folks will never pay anything.
Maybe they will screw up one of these days and be prosecuted on criminal charges.

[yardwork]

13. Actually, the Southern Poverty Research Center has shut down

a number of white supremacist organizations through the use of lawsuits. It's true that these hate groups rarely have much cash, but they often own a lot of land. Successful lawsuits against them have caused them to lose their land and that has shut them down in numerous cases. It's a strategy that works.

[Buns_of_Fire]

37. Indeed it does. Two fairly recent examples:

Paying Damages For a Lynching -- United Klans of America loses their Tuscaloosa HQ

Macedonia v. Christian Knights of the Ku Klux Klan -- Wherin the Klan loses its SC land and HQ building

An appeal to their "humanity" and the like doesn't work. Hitting them -- hard -- in the pocketbook does.

(On edit: Although, for the life of me, I can't envision Phred Phelps and the Phurry Phreak Phamily owning anything worth taking. Except maybe that Gawdawful hat he wears...)

[guitar man]

33. either that

or they will screw up and cross the wrong family, one that won't react too kindly to their brand of bullshit...

[yardwork]

43. I actually think that they are hoping for that. See post #35 down thread.

I watched that documentary on the Phelps clan. These people are crazy. I think that they are hoping that somebody - the government? queer nation? liberals? - will engage in a war with them.

I hope that nobody takes the bait. Violence is not the answer.

[guitar man]

45. yeah, I know but

if it was my family they pulled this shit on, they'd be a lot less concerned about suing someone and a lot more concerned about when the't be gitting out of the hospital and rehab.

I think my brother and I could contain ourselves, but we have a couple sisters that would just kick the living shit out of the lot of them :evilgrin:

[Darth Lenore]

4. HA! Poetic justice

Having earned my BA at the University of Wyoming (motto: "The high school after high school"), I'm familiar with the despicable Fred Phelps from his yearly visits to "celebrate" the death of Matthew Shepard. Every year when we organized the counter-protest, we would have to warn people not to get into physical confrontations with him or his people because he makes his money by provoking people, then suing them for assault.


Now the courts are reversing the flow of $ to the tune of 2.9 million! That puts a smile on my face.

[yardwork]

18. I read that many of Phelps' clan have become lawyers for that reason.

They really are a hate organization. They exist for no other reason than to promote violence against gay people.

[icymist]

35. I think you just said it all, Darth Lenore.... "provoking people, then suing them".

Phelps has another motive besides his phony warning of God's wrath that's financial. I saw these people on Capital Hill in Seattle a few years back, protesting Gay priests. They just stood there holding their obnoxious signs while the police and 'The Queer Patrol' (a volunteer group in the gay community, kind of like an active block watch) held back a very angry crowd from getting too close. Indeed, provoking people and then suing them may be the real motive here.

BTW, Welcome to the DU!

[BOSSHOG]

7. phelps should give any paperwork related to the suit to limbaugh

so he can have it auctioned off on ebay to raise money for his Marine charity. There is hardly an degree of separation between limbaugh and phelps. They are both haters, they just look and sound differently.

[legaltender]

9. Not that it matters, but

I'm pretty sure Snyder wasn't gay. Phelps' crazy claim is that God is killing U.S. soldiers (gay, not gay, Catholic, not Catholic, etc.) because America tolerates homosexuality; it doesn't matter to him whether the soldier is gay or not. That's the message he puts out, anyway.

[Lone_Star_Dem]

10. I have no idea if he was or not

But, you're correct in the fact that Phelps has been targeting any U.S. soldiers funerals without care for their personal sexual orientation.

Welcome to DU! :hi:

[legaltender]

12. Thanks.

Full disclosure: I'm a traditional conservative ex-Republican who comes here for the passion. We may or may not ever agree on politics, but I admire everyone here for their willingness to put it out there.

[yardwork]

15. Thank you for your full disclosure, but you may be in the wrong place.

DU is a site for progressives who support Democratic candidates. There are other sites on the internet(s) that provide venues for people from different political parties to discuss issues. DU is not one of them.

[Occulus]

34. I'd prefer someone such as yourself in office over the bunch we have now

and to be frank, with that one sentence, you yourself were more honest about your own political position than, say, Joe Lieberman or Zell Miller.

Just pointing that out for your inevitable naysayers' collective benefit.

Welcome to DU! :hi:

[kestrel91316]

24. What really pisses Phelps off is that America isn't stoning gays to death.

Trust me. That's the ONLY thing that would shut him up.

[gratuitous]

27. Snyder was almost certainly not gay

But Phelps and his pals at Westboro, as you say, celebrate what they perceive to be God's judgment on America for not being sufficiently intolerant of gay people. It's a despicable message, and one that alienates even the hardest of the hard-core reactionaries. They then celebrate their own alienation as proof that just like Jesus, they've turned the entire world against them. They seem blissfully oblivious to any part of the Bible (1 Cor. 13 comes to mind, naturally) that talks about love and peace. The seem to prefer being a noisy gong.

I've had a couple of occasions to "chat" with these folks, in Kansas City and Portland, and they're so sick on the fumes of their own offal that I fear they're irretrievable. My wife sort of got through to one of them by mentioning how desperately unhappy she seemed to be with her placard and her speech. I'm sure this woman skedaddled back to Kansas and got re-indoctrinated, but for a moment, it seemed there was a human being lurking somewhere deep below the surface.

[Ilsa]

14. They have a judgment, can't they file liens on the church's property

to at least attach it and prevent them from selling real estate and hiding the funds?

[yardwork]

17. Exactly. These are the kinds of strategies that might actually shut them down.

[Forkboy]

16. Awww, that's a shame.

:applause:

[Timmy5835]

19. Don't get too excited........

Even though Phelps (sp?) is a scumbag we are still supposed to have free speech here. "I will fight to the death for your right to free speech, no matter how much I disgree with it". So the question is, WILL YOU BE NEXT?

[bicentennial_baby]

22. it's a civil suit

So, no issue there, afaik.

[kestrel91316]

25. Not if I don't engage in hateful behavior specifically intended to cause

emotional distress.......

I have no plans to picket anybody's funeral and call them names and spit on them and scream invectives at mourners.

[yardwork]

26. The Supreme Court has noted that there are instances where free speech violates other's rights

Hate speech is generally protected in the United States, but not to the extent that it violates the rights of others.

The Phelps's have always won their court cases on the basis of free speech, but this time a judge was convinced that their hate speech violated the civil rights of others. The same has been found of white supremacist organizations burning crosses in people's yards, etc.

[blogslut]

29. This was no judgment against free speech

It was a judgment against and act of harassment. There's a difference.

[LostinVA]

32. Bingo

Hey -- check your PM.

[mondo joe]

36. Civil suit. Not a First Amendment issue.

[Richard Steele]

20. Render unto Ceasar, motherfuckers!

:party: :bounce: :applause::applause: :bounce: :party:

[DS1]

23. perfect

:thumbsup:

[dkofos]

21. There is a god, and he likes Gays!!

[CC]

28. According to local news the jury also

awarded an additional $8 million in punitive damages.:woohoo:

[blogslut]

30. bonus!

sweetness

[Lone_Star_Dem]

38. Now that's an update worth hearing!

:bounce:

[Stinky The Clown]

31. hahahahaha ..... too bad for Phreddie and Phreddie's Phamily.

Some people deserve to be sued and lose. The Phucked up Phelps Phamily is among them.

[crickets]

39. Woohoo! It's about time. -nt

[FunkyLeprechaun]

40. The Yahoo News Headline was vague

"$11M verdict in funeral protesters case"

I'm not a fan of litigation like that but when I saw who it was... I did cheer! Phelps is a real... ugh... and he deserves this treatment!

As for the mentions about ACLU, I feel that this is isn't really about free speech, this is more about badgering the families of the dead unnecessarily and possibly defaming them as well. Phelps makes that a point every single time he brings his circus freak show in town.

[YOY]

41. I like to pretend that I am sure there is an afterlife somethimes

Fred and his clan's suffering will be legendary.

[racaulk]

42. Sweet!

:bounce:

[Initech]

44. Good. I hope it bankrupts the assholes.