Snyder ordered to pay appeal costs in funeral protest case

Ellen wrote:

Are we just going to let this happen without protest? I think they deserve the same marching protesrs around each of their homes. I won't suggest marching on their church because they probably don't have one or even go to one.

It would actually be fairly easy to do in one sense, because the family's homes and their "church" are all on the same block, but the city of Topeka doesn't allow for protests there. It's a residential neighborhood and their neighbors have it tough enough just having this cancer in their midst without having regular protests making it worse. Topeka is embarrassed enough having these people in their city (the mayors of the city have sent notes of apology to cities where the Freak Show has protested for years), so when they are actually in town, they try to keep any potential conflict to a minimum...

Rick in Kansas wrote:

The people demanded some tort reform, the people got some tort reform and one of the reforms we got with it is what is known as loser pays. In an effort to clear congestion from the federal appeals courts and to curb so-called frivolous lawsuits, one of the changes that have been implemented is that the loser on an appeal has to pay the court costs for it. I feel sorry for the Snyder family in all of this, but they never had what should have been a winnable case in the first place and losing the appeal for a case that they shouldn't have won means he has to pay for it , sadly.
As ugly and as mean-spirited as the Phelps Family Freak Show of Hate is when they show up at the worst possible moment, if we are truly to be a nation that respects the right to free speech, they have every right to be there. Having suffered with their antics on more than one occasion and at a much closer range than this family had to, I can speak from unfortunate experience. These monsters are hurtful and ugly and I wouldn't wish them on someone I hated, but if the courts are to punish them for what they say, what is going to prevent us from being punished when someone takes offense at what we have to say? If Fred and his adorable family loses the right to say "God Hates Fags" and "Thank God For Another Dead Soldier", how quick do we lose the right to call their little Freak Show "church" the sick and sadistic scum of the Earth that they really are?

Rick one big thing you need to know.

The Phelps family is not doing their stuff for "Free speech" they are doing it HOPING that someone will "Do something bad" to them.

So they can get rich off of the lawsuits. They are doing "Free speech" they are attempting to incite a riot.

rdg1234 wrote:

<quoted text>
Not only this, but people trap themselves by believing they must "uphold some archetype of betterment and virtue" by NOT responding in kind.
I have never, never, never agreed with that and I never, never will. If I say the most elegant person in the world speaking to these people like they were dirt and scum, I would recognize and realize that *that's how you deal with THEM*; it doesn't reflect on YOU. It's your reaction to them *because of* the free-speech liberties they take.
Naturally, anyone alive is free to disagree. You do your thing, and I'll do mine.
I literally do not see them as human, and I *react to them* as if they are not human. Moreover, the same free speech right they *JUST FOUGHT FOR* allows anyone on this board to call them everything from satanists to animals wallowing in filth. Good lord, I wish people would get a grip and just *say what they think* and recognize that it doesn't reduce them as people; they're simply expressing THEIR TRUTH about this group of animals and literal, actual scum/garbage. Simple.

Dehumanizing others is the disease behind slavery and ... yes ... the oppression of gay people.

You need antibiotics and vaccinations against this illness.

Until then, you are dangerous.

A Watcher wrote:

Rick one big thing you need to know.
The Phelps family is not doing their stuff for "Free speech" they are doing it HOPING that someone will "Do something bad" to them.
So they can get rich off of the lawsuits. They are doing "Free speech" they are attempting to incite a riot.

One thing you may not know is that while the Phelps Family Freak Show of Hate plays a crazed bunch of hateful religious zealots for the TV cameras, behind the scenes, among their little "congregation" lurks some of the most successful crazed 1st Amendment attorneys in the country. Until the Snyder verdict went against them, they were pretty much batting 1.000 in dozens of lawsuits against local officials who tried to prevent their sideshow from coming in and against those who tried to charge them with anything illegal based on their performances. As lawyers, these people put the fear of God into most local and state officials and the mere threat of their filing a lawsuit gets most of them to back down. Even the Snyder verdict going against them can't really be counted as a loss, they got it overturned on appeal and earned a free trip to the Supreme Court in the process.

It's this kind of case that they do their evil little happy dance over, not the prospect of a lawsuit over someone doing something bad to them. Over the years they've been spit at, cursed, shoved and a while back someone lobbed an unsuccessful molotov cocktail at their little "church", but I can't recall of them suing anyone for financial gain even once.

I would be ashamed to call that my church...I'm pretty sure mr. phelps doesn't speak for God.

Is this justice? These "church" people verbally assualt the families od soldiers who gave ALL FOR THIER COUNTRY!!!!Now the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals overturned the decision in September 2009.

What kind of judge rules that anyone has the "right" to verbally abuse a dead soldier???

john wrote:

sad but that is how the system is set up..U lose-U pay!

I understand Snyder won the original lawsuit, so he did not lose. Also, an assessment of lawyers fees and court costs against a party is generally discretionary with a judge. But this decision is a symptom of the problems with our legal system. When we elect liberal/left wing governors and presidents, this is what we get... they appoint like-minded or even more radical judges who re-write the Constitution and interpret laws to suit their own political agenda. Elections have consequences.

go to
http://www.matthewsnyder.org/help.html

http://www.matthewsnyder.org/help.html

Why don't these haters of gays protest outside the homes of people like Rosie O'Donnell and Ellen Degenerate? Leave the families alone to mourn in peace!

Why dont they consider it a hate crime against gays...harassment?

How sad, that in this country we don't even respect the dead. Regardless of your religious beliefs. There is no respect for anyone, especially a soldier who died protecting our freedom. Does harrassment at a funeral really constitute a 1st ammendment right? Obviously, the Supreme Court wants to chime in and give their opinion. I just think the protesters could have there say somewhere else, not at the funeral...no respect, period.

Rick in Kansas wrote:

<quoted text>I say the things I say about the Freak Show thugs from a distance, because I know all to well that saying these kinds of things in person is a complete exercise in futility and to be blunt about it, it's what get their sick little rocks off. I first encountered their malignancy long before they had made their kind of name for themselves when their act was regional and limited mostly to showing up at funerals of AIDS victims. "Funeral Picket" laws hadn't even been thought of and the first time I got to see their show was by having to walk right through them at the funeral of a very dear friend. Sickening doesn't even begin to describe the experience. In the years since, I've run into them more times than I care to count, including on a couple of occasions having to spend a couple of hours standing between them and people who were pretty much unhappy to see them, acting as a marshal at a gay rally at the capitol in Topeka and at the pride parade in NYC.
I want to be free to say what I really think about Fred and his loathsome spawns of evil without the fear that I could be sued over the "trauma" that my right to free speech causes them and in order to ensure that my rights are protected, as much as I disagree with everything that these monsters say and do , I have to defend their right to say it and do it. We don't have a right not to be offended by the words and beliefs of others, or to expect the courts to punish them when we are. I feel sorry for the Snyder family and every other family that has to put up with their protests, but putting up with them is all we can do.

I appreciate all of this, and think it's well-thought. I would addend it, however.

I await the day that a very, very goddamn pissed-off person encounters the phelpses, does *NOT* give a shit that the phelpses might take them to court, and counters *in a court setting*, word for word and claim for claim, that they are exercising *EXACTLY* the free speech rights that the phelpses do in denigrating a minority.

Why?

Because if that court did not uphold both claims, imagine the national outrage.

As I write this, the phelpses' property has been vandalized, and the nation has stood behind the snyders in spades. Moreover, the phelpses are attacked in ALL media now.

I wouldn't dare tell you what to do, but your post *prompts to my mind the thought* that I cannot wait for the day someone virulently opposed to the phelpses takes them through court for the right to behave *EXACTLY* as they do.

snyper wrote:

<quoted text>
Dehumanizing others is the disease behind slavery and ... yes ... the oppression of gay people.
You need antibiotics and vaccinations against this illness.
Until then, you are dangerous.

If the final lines here are directed *at me personally*, we disagree and will likely be unable to come to any agreement on this.

IF that is not so, ignore all of the following.

The mistake I feel you make is *VERY* quickly identifiable: You see such behavior as "defining" a person's character. That is, at any rate, how I take it.

The very circumstances under which a person is *deploying such attitudes* make this false. It defines the anti-gay, as I implied and/or stated above. It *completely fails* to define the pro-gay, who do it *reactively* and in a way that illustrates the PROBLEM, not "comes from nowhere."

Worst of all, actually -- most horrifying of all -- IF this was directed at me personally, is the fact that this *proves* you're making a blanket statement by which you "judge" or "diagnose" a complete stranger, basing your opinion on the *archetypal behavior* and not the cirumstances. In other words, you are claiming that such behavior is *always* bad.

I could wonder endlessly why someone fighting off a murderer in their home would be "bad" to react in ways that showed they held such beliefs ... but I won't.

Which brings me to the crux of *WHY* I see it as acceptable.

Civility in this culture war is gone.

I will interfere with no one else who feels they *must* uphold it under all circumstances. I will *NOT* follow suit. The worst that could come out of exhortations that I do so is that I begin to lose sympathy for equality rights causes; but if my opinion is really not to be valued, then surely neither you nor anyone else would care about losing my sympathy. Right? Right.

Kindly don't tell me who to be, please. Thanks for reading.

AGAIN, I STRESS, if I misread you, I apologize now for this entire post; but if I read you correctly, I'm not about to fall into the trap presented.