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</script> <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/03/29/father-of-dead-marine-ord_n_517614.html" id="title_permalink">Father Of Dead Marine Ordered To Pay Legal Fees Of
Westobro Baptist Church Protesters</a>
</h1>
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<p>
<b>AP/Huffington Post</b>
<span style="color: rgb(105, 105, 105);">
First Posted: 03-29-10 04:30 PM | Updated:
03-30-10 12:51 AM
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<p><strong>UPDATE:</strong> The Snyder family is
seeking <a href="http://www.matthewsnyder.org/">donations</a> to help
them continue their suit.</p>
<p>BALTIMORE (AP) — The father of a Marine killed in Iraq and whose
funeral was picketed by anti-gay protesters was ordered to pay the
protesters' appeal costs, his lawyers said Monday.</p>
<p>On Friday, Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit ordered Snyder to
pay $16,510 to Fred Phelps. Phelps is the leader of the Westboro Baptist
Church, which conducted protests at Marine Lance Cpl. Matthew Snyder's
funeral in 2006.</p>
<p>The two-page decision supplied by attorneys for Albert
Snyder of York, Pa., offered no details on how the court came to its
decision.</p>
<p>Attorneys also said Snyder is struggling to come up with fees
associated with filing a brief with the U.S. Supreme Court.</p>
<p>The decision adds "insult to injury," said Sean Summers, one of
Snyder's lawyers.</p>
<p>The high court agreed to consider whether the protesters' message is
protected by the First Amendment or limited by the competing privacy and
religious rights of the mourners.</p>
</div> </div>
</div></div><div style="font-family: times new roman,new york,times,serif; font-size: 12pt;"><br><div style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><font face="Tahoma" size="2"><hr size="1"><b><span style="font-weight: bold;">From:</span></b> Tom Hansen <thansen@moscow.com><br><b><span style="font-weight: bold;">To:</span></b> Moscow Vision 2020 <vision2020@moscow.com><br><b><span style="font-weight: bold;">Sent:</span></b> Tue, March 30, 2010 7:07:18 AM<br><b><span style="font-weight: bold;">Subject:</span></b> [Vision2020] A Call for Justice<br></font><br>Courtesy of the Army Times at:<br><br><a href="http://www.ArmyTimes.com" target="_blank">http://www.ArmyTimes.com</a><br><br>-----------------------------------------------------------------<br><br>Fallen Marine’s dad takes case against funeral protesters to Supreme Court<br><br>By Dan Lamothe<br><br>YORK, Pa. — Albert Snyder’s eyes well up with tears when he
recalls his<br>son’s funeral. More than 1,200 people packed St. John Catholic Church in<br>Westminster, Md., on March 10, 2006, to pay their respects to 20-year-old<br>Lance Cpl. Matthew Snyder, who died when his Humvee rolled over in Iraq’s<br>Anbar province while he manned the vehicle’s gun turret.<br><br>On their trip from the church to a nearby veterans cemetery, small-town<br>patriotism was on full display. Cars pulled over and allowed the funeral<br>procession to pass. Strangers on the street saluted.<br><br>“I’ve never seen a funeral like this in my life,” the father said, his<br>voice wavering. “It was just amazing to see.” But the funeral was marred<br>by seven uninvited guests — members of the Westboro Baptist Church who<br>flew in from their headquarters in Topeka, Kan., to picket the outside<br>the church service.<br><br>Carrying signs reading “Semper Fi Fags ,” “Thank God for Dead Soldiers”<br>and “Thank
God for IEDs,” the group infuriated passersby and mourners —<br>just as its members have at hundreds of military funerals across the<br>country before and since.<br><br>Led by founder Fred Phelps, the group maintains that God kills U.S. troops<br>as punishment for the country’s tolerance of homosexuality, greed and<br>abortion.<br><br>Snyder wasn’t going to take that lying down.<br><br>Four years after his son’s death, this modest automation equipment<br>salesman and a small team of lawyers are taking their case all the way to<br>the Supreme Court, where they will argue that Phelps’ right to free speech<br>does not supersede mourners’ rights to lay their family members to rest<br>without facing an insulting public protest.<br><br>Snyder is seeking $5 million in emotional and punitive damages from<br>Westboro Baptist and members of the Phelps family. He hopes that a legal<br>victory will spare others the torment he and hundreds of
other military<br>families have been forced to endure.<br><br>The court, which takes only one in a hundred cases it’s asked to consider,<br>agreed in March to hear the case. Arguments are scheduled for the fall<br>court term, which begins in October.<br><br>“I knew these people were going to be at Matt’s funeral, but in my mind,<br>this day was about Matt, and that’s strictly what it was about,” Snyder<br>said. “People think that these were seven people who showed up with little<br>signs. There were people flipping them the finger, yelling at them from<br>cars. And this is the way you’re going to bury someone who died for their<br>country?”<br><br>Fighting back<br><br>Snyder’s fight started almost immediately. He sued the Westboro church<br>for defamation, invasion of privacy and intentional infliction of<br>emotional distress.<br><br>His suit charged that a screed against the Snyders posted on one of the<br>church’s Web
sites was defamatory. Titled “The Burden of Marine Lance Cpl.<br>Matthew A. Snyder,” the rant accused his parents of raising their son “for<br>the devil.” It also accused them of teaching him to commit adultery and<br>divorce and to “support the largest pedophile machine in the history of<br>the entire world, the Roman Catholic monstrosity.” Finally, the suit<br>argued that the church meant to harm Snyder’s family emotionally.<br><br>The suit did not ask for a specific amount of money, but said the<br>Westboro group should have to pay emotional damages, Snyder’s court costs<br>and punitive damages for their “reprehensible actions.” “I thought about<br>it and about what they did to me, and how Matt would have felt if somebody<br>had done this to one of his brothers from Iraq,” he said. “And I decided,<br>‘I’m going to go through with this.’ ” The church sought to quash the<br>lawsuit, arguing during a trial in
Baltimore in October 2007 that its<br>members did not intend to cause emotional distress. Their protest was kept<br>1,000 feet from the church’s doors, they pointed out. They needed to<br>preach to “doomed America” in public places to let it be known the<br>acceptance of homosexuality is wrong, they said.<br><br>The jury didn’t buy their argument. On Oct. 31, 2007, it found in<br>Snyder’s favor, awarding him $10.9 million in damages — enough to<br>effectively bankrupt the 70-member church.<br><br>‘An insult’<br><br>The Westboro group immediately appealed the decision.<br><br>In February 2008, a federal judge in Baltimore decided to reduce the<br>damages to $5 million. The church’s next appeal went to the 4th U.S.<br>Circuit Court of Appeals in Richmond, Va.<br><br>That court overturned the original decision, with a three-judge panel<br>ruling the Phelps family’s signs and internet criticism of the Snyders was<br>protected as
free speech under the First Amendment, even if the discourse<br>was “repugnant,” Judge Robert King wrote in the court’s opinion.<br><br>Snyder struggled with his next step, too.<br><br>In an interview, Snyder said balancing the legal battle, interview<br>requests and day-to-day life has been overwhelming at times. He has<br>accrued about $50,000 in legal bills, even though his attorneys do not<br>charge him for their time. He launched a Web site at<br><br><a href="http://www.matthewsnyder.org" target="_blank">http://www.matthewsnyder.org</a><br><br>to help collect money for the fight, but is “still a long way off” from<br>paying for everything.<br><br>“I don’t want to take anyone’s free speech away,” Snyder said. “But I<br>don’t want anybody to do anything to the people who gave us that free<br>speech. Too many people have died to protect it, and for someone to hide<br>behind it and abuse it is an insult.” Legal experts are
uncertain how the<br>case will play out. They question whether the court will rule in favor of<br>Snyder if it means the right to free speech will be limited in any way.<br><br>-----------------<br><br>Lance Cpl. Matthew Snyder and his father, Albert.<br><br><a href="http://tinyurl.com/Matthew-Snyder" target="_blank">http://tinyurl.com/Matthew-Snyder</a><br><br>-----------------------------------------------------------------<br><br>Pro patria.<br><br>Seeya round town, Moscow.<br><br>Tom Hansen<br>Moscow, Idaho<br><br>"Patriotism is not a short and frenzied outburst of emotion but the<br>tranquil and steady dedication of a lifetime."<br><br>-- Adlai E. Stevenson, Jr.<br><br>=======================================================<br> List services made available by First Step Internet, <br> serving the communities of the Palouse since 1994. <br> <a href="http://www.fsr.net"
target="_blank">http://www.fsr.net</a> <br> mailto:<a ymailto="mailto:Vision2020@moscow.com" href="mailto:Vision2020@moscow.com">Vision2020@moscow.com</a><br>=======================================================<br></div></div>
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