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Supreme Court to consider protesters at military funerals

Margie M. Phelps, left, stands with her husband Pastor Fred Phelps and her daughter Margie J. Phelps during a demonstration outside the federal courthouse in Baltimore, Maryland, Wednesday, Oct. 31, 2007. Members of the Topeka, Kansas based Westboro Baptist Church demonstrated in downtown Baltimore where a jury is deliberating whether the church and its members can be held legally liable in a suit brought by Albert Snyder, the father of Lance CPL Matthew A. Snyder whose funeral the group demonstrated at in Westminster, MD, in March of 2006.

AP Photo/Baltimore Sun, Jed Kirschbaum Margie M. Phelps, left, stands with her husband Pastor Fred Phelps and her daughter Margie J. Phelps during a demonstration outside the federal courthouse in Baltimore, Maryland, Wednesday, Oct. 31, 2007. Members of the Topeka, Kansas based Westboro Baptist Church demonstrated in downtown Baltimore where a jury is deliberating whether the church and its members can be held legally liable in a suit brought by Albert Snyder, the father of Lance CPL Matthew A. Snyder whose funeral the group demonstrated at in Westminster, MD, in March of 2006.

ENLARGE PHOTO

File Marine Lance Cpl. Maria Lauterbach of Vandalia.

ENLARGE PHOTO

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Vandalia Police officers hold back Army Staff Sgt. Bobby Brite of Dearborn, Mich. as he tries to reach protesters from Westboro Baptist Church in Topeka, Kan. Brite came from Michigan to attend Marine Lance Cpl. Maria Lauterbach's funeral and was surprised to see the group. The Kansas church members have been protesting at military funerals around the country because they believe the United States is being punished by God for of its tolerance of homosexuality.

Staff photo by Jan Underwood Vandalia Police officers hold back Army Staff Sgt. Bobby Brite of Dearborn, Mich. as he tries to reach protesters from Westboro Baptist Church in Topeka, Kan. Brite came from Michigan to attend Marine Lance Cpl. Maria Lauterbach's funeral and was surprised to see the group. The Kansas church members have been protesting at military funerals around the country because they believe the United States is being punished by God for of its tolerance of homosexuality.

Kansas church group protested at local funeral for slain pregnant Marine

By Margo Rutledge Kissell, Staff Writer Updated 8:28 PM Tuesday, March 9, 2010

The U.S. Supreme Court is getting involved in the legal fight over the anti-gay protesters who show up at military funerals with inflammatory messages, such as “Thank God for dead soldiers.”

The court agreed Monday, March 8, to consider whether the protesters’ message, no matter how provocative and upsetting, is protected by the First Amendment.

Members of the fundamentalist Westboro Baptist Church of Topeka, Kan., came to the Miami Valley in 2008 to protest at the Vandalia funeral of slain pregnant Marine Lance Cpl. Maria Lauterbach, whose charred remains were found buried in January 2008 behind the Jacksonville, N.C., home of then-fellow Marine Cesar Laurean.

The church protested also the Wapakoneta funeral of Army Sgt. Jon Michael “Mike” Schoolcraft III, who was killed Jan. 18, 2008, in Iraq.

Church members have picketed military funerals to spread their belief that U.S. deaths in Afghanistan and Iraq are punishment for the nation’s tolerance of homosexuality.

“The main reason (we’re picketing) is because God hates the U.S. military. God hates America and America is doomed,” Shirley Phelps-Roper, the Kansas church pastor’s daughter, told the Dayton Daily News before protesting at Lauterbach’s funeral at St. Christopher Catholic Church.

Ohio law requires protesters stay 300 feet from funeral ceremonies, processions and burials. The legislation was introduced by state Sen. John Boccieri, D-New Middletown, an Air Force Reserve major who has served in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The Supreme Court justices will hear an appeal from the father of a Marine killed in Iraq to reinstate a $5 million verdict against the protesters, after they picketed outside his son’s funeral in Maryland.

A jury in Baltimore awarded Albert Snyder damages for emotional distress and invasion of privacy, but a federal appeals court threw out the verdict. The 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said the signs contained “imaginative and hyperbolic rhetoric” protected by the First Amendment.

The 2006 funeral for Marine Lance Cpl. Matthew Snyder in Westminster, Md., was among many that have been picketed by members of the fundamentalist church.

One of the signs at Snyder’s funeral combined the U.S. Marine Corps motto with a slur against gay men.

Other signs carried by members of the church said, “America is Doomed,” “God Hates the USA/Thank God for 9/11,” and “Thank God for IEDs,” a reference to the roadside bombs that have killed many U.S. troops in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The case, Snyder v. Phelps, will be argued in the fall.

Snyder told the Dayton Daily News in 2008 that he was pursuing justice.

“It’s not about the money. It’s about what they took away from me,” he said. “I had one chance to bury my son, and they took that away from me.”

The Associated Press contributed to this story.

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