[Vision2020] A Call for Justice

Tue Mar 30 07:07:18 PDT 2010

Courtesy of the Army Times at:

http://www.ArmyTimes.com

-----------------------------------------------------------------

Fallen Marine’s dad takes case against funeral protesters to Supreme Court

By Dan Lamothe

YORK, Pa. — Albert Snyder’s eyes well up with tears when he recalls his
son’s funeral. More than 1,200 people packed St. John Catholic Church in
Westminster, Md., on March 10, 2006, to pay their respects to 20-year-old
Lance Cpl. Matthew Snyder, who died when his Humvee rolled over in Iraq’s
Anbar province while he manned the vehicle’s gun turret.

On their trip from the church to a nearby veterans cemetery, small-town
patriotism was on full display. Cars pulled over and allowed the funeral
procession to pass. Strangers on the street saluted.

“I’ve never seen a funeral like this in my life,” the father said, his
voice wavering. “It was just amazing to see.” But the funeral was marred
by seven uninvited guests — members of the Westboro Baptist Church who
flew in from their headquarters in Topeka, Kan., to picket the outside
the church service.

Carrying signs reading “Semper Fi Fags ,” “Thank God for Dead Soldiers”
and “Thank God for IEDs,” the group infuriated passersby and mourners —
just as its members have at hundreds of military funerals across the
country before and since.

Led by founder Fred Phelps, the group maintains that God kills U.S. troops
as punishment for the country’s tolerance of homosexuality, greed and
abortion.

Snyder wasn’t going to take that lying down.

Four years after his son’s death, this modest automation equipment
salesman and a small team of lawyers are taking their case all the way to
the Supreme Court, where they will argue that Phelps’ right to free speech
does not supersede mourners’ rights to lay their family members to rest
without facing an insulting public protest.

Snyder is seeking $5 million in emotional and punitive damages from
Westboro Baptist and members of the Phelps family. He hopes that a legal
victory will spare others the torment he and hundreds of other military
families have been forced to endure.

The court, which takes only one in a hundred cases it’s asked to consider,
agreed in March to hear the case. Arguments are scheduled for the fall
court term, which begins in October.

“I knew these people were going to be at Matt’s funeral, but in my mind,
this day was about Matt, and that’s strictly what it was about,” Snyder
said. “People think that these were seven people who showed up with little
signs. There were people flipping them the finger, yelling at them from
cars. And this is the way you’re going to bury someone who died for their
country?”

Fighting back

Snyder’s fight started almost immediately. He sued the Westboro church
for defamation, invasion of privacy and intentional infliction of
emotional distress.

His suit charged that a screed against the Snyders posted on one of the
church’s Web sites was defamatory. Titled “The Burden of Marine Lance Cpl.
Matthew A. Snyder,” the rant accused his parents of raising their son “for
the devil.” It also accused them of teaching him to commit adultery and
divorce and to “support the largest pedophile machine in the history of
the entire world, the Roman Catholic monstrosity.” Finally, the suit
argued that the church meant to harm Snyder’s family emotionally.

The suit did not ask for a specific amount of money, but said the
Westboro group should have to pay emotional damages, Snyder’s court costs
and punitive damages for their “reprehensible actions.” “I thought about
it and about what they did to me, and how Matt would have felt if somebody
had done this to one of his brothers from Iraq,” he said. “And I decided,
‘I’m going to go through with this.’ ” The church sought to quash the
lawsuit, arguing during a trial in Baltimore in October 2007 that its
members did not intend to cause emotional distress. Their protest was kept
1,000 feet from the church’s doors, they pointed out. They needed to
preach to “doomed America” in public places to let it be known the
acceptance of homosexuality is wrong, they said.

The jury didn’t buy their argument. On Oct. 31, 2007, it found in
Snyder’s favor, awarding him $10.9 million in damages — enough to
effectively bankrupt the 70-member church.

‘An insult’

The Westboro group immediately appealed the decision.

In February 2008, a federal judge in Baltimore decided to reduce the
damages to $5 million. The church’s next appeal went to the 4th U.S.
Circuit Court of Appeals in Richmond, Va.

That court overturned the original decision, with a three-judge panel
ruling the Phelps family’s signs and internet criticism of the Snyders was
protected as free speech under the First Amendment, even if the discourse
was “repugnant,” Judge Robert King wrote in the court’s opinion.

Snyder struggled with his next step, too.

In an interview, Snyder said balancing the legal battle, interview
requests and day-to-day life has been overwhelming at times. He has
accrued about $50,000 in legal bills, even though his attorneys do not
charge him for their time. He launched a Web site at

http://www.matthewsnyder.org

to help collect money for the fight, but is “still a long way off” from
paying for everything.

“I don’t want to take anyone’s free speech away,” Snyder said. “But I
don’t want anybody to do anything to the people who gave us that free
speech. Too many people have died to protect it, and for someone to hide
behind it and abuse it is an insult.” Legal experts are uncertain how the
case will play out. They question whether the court will rule in favor of
Snyder if it means the right to free speech will be limited in any way.

-----------------

Lance Cpl. Matthew Snyder and his father, Albert.

http://tinyurl.com/Matthew-Snyder

-----------------------------------------------------------------

Pro patria.

Seeya round town, Moscow.

Tom Hansen
Moscow, Idaho

"Patriotism is not a short and frenzied outburst of emotion but the
tranquil and steady dedication of a lifetime."

-- Adlai E. Stevenson, Jr.