The Supreme Court has ruled that the speech of some of the most hateful people in this country is protected by the First Amendment. The Phelps family's Westboro Baptist Church (WBC) is constitutionally entitled to spew their hate of pretty much everything and everyone by way of speech, placard and their presence - but so is everyone else. (It will be interesting to see what kind of turnout a Phelps funeral would have.)
Sarah Palin used Twitter to denounce the ruling, saying, "Common sense & decency absent as wacko 'church' allowed hate msgs spewed@ soldiers' funerals but we can't invoke God's name in public square." Hold on there, Mrs. Palin. The WBC members are invoking God's name in the public square. Get your hate straight. The way the WBC members do it is flat out reprehensible. Nonetheless, they are doing the same thing many a religious person has done time and again throughout the history of our nation. And all of them, including you Mrs. Palin, have been protected by the First Amendment.
The same amendment that protects a U.S. citizen's right to free speech also protects that citizen's right to exercise their religion. Many a religious person will tell you this means we have freedom of religion and not freedom from religion, even as they condemn the way WBC exercises their religion.
Mrs. Palin's outcry may sound good to her own faithful following, but her hypocrisy is glaring. She operates under the delusion that her disdain for gay people is somehow more palatable and more worthy of constitutional protection than that of the WBC.
Our freedoms of are not also our freedoms from because one cannot exist without the other. This means we are publicly subjected to everything and everyone.
Unfortunately, this has come to include the bunny-in-a-blender (courtesy of Pro-life group American Life League), Mrs. Palin's loose grasp of the English language and her random geographical and religious-based definitions of what constitutes a "real American," and the WBC's hate-filled, vile stew of human waste.
If you want to live in a country where some expressions are not constitutionally protected while still maintaining a decent standard of living, public cleanliness and level of safety, there's always Germany.
Article comments
— go to most recent comments1 - bielie
Sorry I'm confused
Did she slam the fact that the court allows WBC to picket or disallows the mention of God's name in public?
Her tweet is seriously ambiguous.
2 - Alan Kurtz
For a decent standard of living, public cleanliness and level of safety, there's always Germany.
Without meaning to gross anyone out, I gagged on my donut when I read that final line in your article. It does, after all, come within 24 hours of news that, in what investigators are calling "a possible act of Islamic terrorism," a Muslim gunman at the Frankfurt airport opened fire on a U.S. Air Force bus carrying 15 unarmed American airmen, killing two and seriously injuring two others.
Now, please run that part about "level of safety" by me again, Diana.
3 - diana hartman
Alan, glad to run it by you again. First, please keep the subject-changing to a minimum. I've lived in Germany since 2003 without event. In that time my Stateside family members have experienced break-ins, muggings and car accidents caused by lawbreakers. They have been witness to or in the vicinity of (w/in a block and in one instance in the same building) of shootings, murders and robberies. Using the Frankfurt shooting to propel an argument of any kind is a waste of time.
4 - diana hartman
bielie, she's slamming the fact that the court allows WBC to picket and she is wrongly asserting she can't mention God's name in public.
5 - Tommy Mack
Get your hate straight.
I like it. A couple of other things, though: first, Republicans have their own constitution (the wikiconstitution anyone can rewrite) and second, Palin is unfamiliar with the Larry Flynt case.
Tommy
6 - Andy Marsh
I enjoyed Germany while I was there...Ulm was a very cool little town.
I never could find Ausfahrt though. I kept taking that exit, but I never found the town of Ausfahrt! Seems every exit leads to it, but I never could find it...
7 - Alan Kurtz
Oh, that easy to find, Andy. Turn left at Dachau.
8 - Dr Dreadful
LOL @ Andy.
Reminds me of the first time my family went on holiday in Wales back when I was a kid (just after the fall of Constantinople). We kept seeing these signs everywhere pointing to something called "Llwybr Cyhoeddus", but we couldn't find it on any maps. So eventually my dad asked someone where it was.
"It means 'public footpath'," the man said.
9 - laughwell
I can't believe any human being would even think of this bimbo woman in any policial office let alone the office of the President---people are we dumbing down? . It seems she's accomplished a lot in Alaska by being vindictive, cute and winking and blinking, without any real, substantive, serious scrutiny. Worse than Palin is the group of people who think she has something to offer and who give her money to support her smoke screen.
God Bless America.
10 - Dan
"she's slamming the fact that the court allows WBC to picket and she is wrongly asserting she can't mention God's name in public."---diana hartman
diana, can you think of any instance where courts have prevented people from mentioning God's name in the "public square"? I can think of many. Perhaps that is what Sarah is on about.
yep, I think that is certainly it.
11 - diana hartman
Dan, please substantiate. What U.S. citizen in what state was legally barred from and/or arrested for saying "God" in public?
12 - Alan Kurtz
If Gov. Palin complains in public that she can't mention God's name in public, hasn't she just disproved her own statement?
13 - diana hartman
What Alan said.
14 - roger nowosielski
Alan is trading on the distinction between "use" and "mention."
15 - Baronius
I think there's a different distinction that has to be made: public as visible (WBC) versus public as official governmental (what I think Palin's talking about).
16 - Dan
diana gives a prime example of Palin derangement syndrome: let's pretend Sarah means the mere mention of the word "God" by any individual citizen at all times in any public place or setting.
17 - Dr Dreadful
Then, Baronius, Palin doesn't understand the distinction she makes, or if she does she doesn't accept it.
For example, a child saying grace by herself before lunch at her public school is perfectly within her rights to do so. She is exercising her constitutionally protected free expression of religion, as is the WBC.
A teacher leading the saying of grace in the same school is not. She is in violation of the Establishment Clause, which the courts have interpreted to encompass any religious expression or ritual that is, or appears to be, officially endorsed by a governmental agency. This is why printing "In God We Trust" on US currency is unconstitutional, as is the inclusion of the words "under God" in the pledge of allegiance when recited in public school classrooms.
So I have absolutely no problem with Palin thanking God in one of her speeches, or whatever she wants to do. She's a private citizen: she holds no public office.
If Palin wants to go after the WBC, she'll have to get them on public order rather than constitutional grounds, although they know the law extremely well (Phelps is a lawyer by profession) and usually stay on just the right side of it.
18 - Dan
There's example number 2.
19 - ossi
wooooa, steady on my friend. Are you trying to get the cuckoo lady to come over to Germany? Don't you dare. We are quite happy here and she can stay in her little house and stare out at Russia.
20 - Dr Dreadful
Dan, you didn't even read my comment.
21 - Glenn Contrarian
Doc -
#8 is priceless - I think most of us who've traveled a bit can greatly appreciate the anecdote!
I remember one time that my wife and I (before we were married) were going to have dinner with her sister and brother-in-law. I knew her sister was pregnant, so I asked her how to say "Are you pregnant?" in Tagalog. My wife replied, "Buntis ka na?"
So I practiced that line several times before we arrived - "Buntis ka na, buntis ka na...." As we were eating dinner the conversation paused, so I took the opportunity to ask, "Butas ka ba?" (note the italics)
Everyone got very quiet and I thought to myself, oh crap, what'd I do now? Come to find out that "Butas" means "hole", so I effectively asked my sister-in-law if she had a hole! To this day I am grateful to my brother-in-law for not killing me on the spot.
Yeah, learning a different language can get pretty interesting....
22 - Dr Dreadful
Certainly can, Glenn.
According to this, saying the wrong thing can even start wars...
23 - zingzing
the difference between what phelps' people do and what these people do is that one would be backed by palin and the other would not, and nothing else, and that's a damn inconsistency. palin should learn her constitution. as unfortunate as the constitution's rules can be at times, they're there for a reason.
24 - handyguy
Nice mini-article, Diana. Palin's tweets are mostly good for laughs, but often she is too appallingly tunnel-visioned to be funny.
25 - El Bicho
I was curious how SC would rule. While WBC speech should be protected, as vile as it is, I wondered if Brandenburg v. Ohio might be referenced as their speech could lead to a riot, which wouldn't suprise me if they go to the wrong funeral.
No surprise Dan doesn't understand.