30 Seconds over Westboro
About a year or so ago I encountered members of the Westboro Baptist Church currently the subject of a case being argued before the US Supreme court. It left a strong impression on me at the time. I thought I had notes on this, but I can't find them now. I came up on them one day while bicycling in to work. This was at the intersection of Adelphi rd., University Blvd., and Campus drive. An intersection governed by three sets of lights. The University of Maryland University College Conference center (Run by Marriott) lies to the eastern corner. There was a small group maybe 5-7 people protesting peacefully. They were outnumbered by the police and reporters Since they were on this normally deserted stretch of sidewalk. I had to thread my way through the whole group with my bike. It wasn't until I got this close and began reading their signs and handouts: God rejoices in dead soldiers, God hates this, God hates that. that I realized what sort of protest was going on. I recalled vaguely I had heard of this group before, but I couldn't recall much about them. I took note of the group's composition as I went through. There was one older flinty guy talking to someone who appeared to be a reporter in a quiet almost chatty tones. From pictures I saw later on I know this was the Rev. Phelps himself. In addition there were what appeared to be one or two couples holding signs and talking among themselves, possibly some younger children as well. There was one figure my attention was drawn to over all the others. A middle aged woman, late fifties, sixties hard to tell. She was just standing there holding a sign like the others but utterly set, utterly oblivious to her surroundings. Devoid of any emanation of human warmth. Her eyes shuttered iron doors admitting no feeling. She was -- unlike the rest.
When I got to my office some minutes later I was with the aid of a coworker able to come up with their name and go to their web site to see what they were protesting. It turned out to be a new defense department command's conference on developing solutions for the scourge of car-bombs and other types of improvised explosive devices (IED's) Joint IED Defeat Organization - JIEDDO. These annual conferences seem to take place in late October early November every year. This was probably 2008. The Westboro group was appalled by the very idea of stopping bombs, because they need blown apart men and women soldiers to theodrenically validate their own hatreds. I made the word theodrenically up, but I like it.
Oral arguments for Snyder v. Phelps [ Snyder v. Phelps, Docket No. 09-751 ] occurred today Wed., 06 Oct 2010. The case turns on one of the military funeral protests and is being argued on free speech grounds: Westboro Baptist Church case draws protesters at Supreme Court. It was originally decided for the plaintiff, but overturned on appeal and is now with the US Court Justices Hear Arguments in Funeral-Protest Case - NYTimes.com. There was already a long term set of interactions between the WBC and the authorities by the time of the incident in this case. Ground rules had been set, and were being adhered to (thousand foot offset for the protest, non (overtly) obstructionist behavior) Court considers anti-gay protests at funerals | Reuters. On a cursory examination it would appear to meet free speech requirements. No violence was being urged or incited. It is mere opinion; dramatically unpopular, offensive, but only opinion. The point of Free Speech is to extend protection of the law to minority opinion, almost by definition this will be unpopular opinion. The general public will eschew the protection afforded it almost as vehemently as the opinion itself. This cannot affect the law. At the same time there is a tendency of some, given to narrowly accepted opinion, to believe that the law affords them not only the right to speak an opinion, but freedom from disagreement, from counter-argument. It doesn't do that. There are some related considerations on the difference between private and public figures, and their private moments. The intimation is that free speech and personal subjective realm are a pair of inversely related dichotomies. That speech may be mediated as it impacts an individual's experience even if it isn't strictly slanderous speech. There isn't much that shouldn't be rejected about this on strictly free speech grounds. Libel laws cover false statements, public figures are open to a certain amount of exaggerated ridicule, private individuals are not. Anti-stalking and other criminal sanctions protect both public and private persona from violence and physical interference. At one point the lawyer for Albert Snyder, the plaintiff whose son's burial was interfered with, admitted that had this been a more straightforward and less perverse protest against the war but in otherwise similar circumstance, it would have easily fallen under more standard notions of protected political speech.
It doesn't seem right to leave it at that; though. So I want to add an additional thought. It's not just that these protests interfere with a private moment or even the presence of grief, of family suffering in these moments. Perhaps the key is the idea of an irreplaceable moment, a singular moment of grief. The Westboro Baptist Church people take that away, in their pursuit of their own hedonistic glory and nothing can replace it or give it back. What the court might consider is that all moments of a life are not alike, one coin from another carelessly fungible. That there are, with no doubt, unique passages within human experience.
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