First Amendment upheld 8-1

[Tupac Shakur]

You absolutely baffle me sometimes. How did you ever learn to operate a computer without shorting out the keyboard with your torrents of drool?

[Elok]

The SCOTUS should have found that someone really needs to buy up property around Phelp's church and home and construct some very risqué and massive gay sculptures. SCOTUS

Waste of time. He's old, he'll die soon enough, and when he does the owner of every burlesque club in the country will buy a bus ticket to Kansas so they can do an extravagant production of that "Keep it gay" song from "The Producers" at his funeral.

[Aeson]

Your way is a waste of time.

They'll have to be 1000 feet away, he won't be around to appreciate it, and it'll be over after a day so it'll be very empty indeed. We need something that will stand as a monument for centuries.

[Darius871]

someone really needs to buy up property around Phelp's church and home and construct some very risqué and massive gay sculptures.

Wait a minute. Wait. Seriously, why the hell hasn't this been done yet? It seems too obvious to not already be the case. Hell, I'm not gay, don't know or care about "gay issues," and never really even have occasion in my daily life to notice that gayness exists, but I'd still gladly donate to this worthy cause just to see the reaction. Troll the trolls I say!

[Wiglaf]

I would also donate to the massive gay sculptures

[Aeson]

I hope by "donate" you mean allowing us to use your likeness (body, heads will be Jesus and Harry Potter... er... not those heads.)

[Ogie Oglethorpe]

Wait a minute. Wait. Seriously, why the hell hasn't this been done yet? It seems too obvious to not already be the case. Hell, I'm not gay, don't know or care about "gay issues," and never really even have occasion in my daily life to notice that gayness exists, but I'd still gladly donate to this worthy cause just to see the reaction. Troll the trolls I say!

This approach really pissed off the folks at the ground zero mosque when Greg Gutfield proposed opening a gay bar next to them. I think it perfectly appropriate.

The problem is attempting to establish a gay bar/shrine etc. would mean it would have to be a mobile home type structure in order to keep up the doublewide Phelps uses.

[MrFun]

I've been thinking about something. A significant number of these people on the receiving end of Phelp's funeral protests are homophobic.

Those people finally found out how hurtful and damaging homophobia is. Maybe they will have a greater understanding of how gays feel when gays are victimized by such homophobic attacks.

[loinburger]

I've been thinking about something. A significant number of these people on the receiving end of Phelp's funeral protests are homophobic.

Huzzah for stereotyping

[DinoDoc]

A significant number of these people on the receiving end of Phelp's funeral protests are homophobic.

Here I was thinking about a significant number of them simply wanted to bury loved ones in peace. I had no idea you had evidence showing them to also be bigots who got a bit of karmic payback.

[MrFun]

It's called demographics.

The majority of people in the military, and their families, are conservative. The majority of conservatives tend to be homophobic.

[DinoDoc]

Huzzah for stereotyping - loinburger

[flash9286]

Al B. "true threats" are not protected by the first amendment, hence why simple assaults are outside of the first amendment.

“True threats” encompass those statements where the speaker means to communicate a serious expression of an intent to commit an act of unlawful violence to a particular individual or group of individuals. The speaker need not actually intend to carry out the threat. Rather, a prohibition on true threats “protect[s] individuals from the fear of violence” and “from the disruption that fear engenders,” in addition to protecting people “from the possibility that the threatened violence will occur.” Intimidation in the constitutionally proscribable sense of the word is a type of true threat, where a speaker directs a threat to a person or group of persons with the intent of placing the victim in fear of bodily harm or death.

“True threats” encompass those statements where the speaker means to communicate a serious expression of an intent to commit an act of unlawful violence to a particular individual or group of individuals. See Watts v. United States, supra, at 708, 89 S.Ct. 1399 (“political hyberbole” is not a true threat); R.A.V. v. City of St. Paul, 505 U.S., at 388, 112 S.Ct. 2538. The *360 speaker need not actually intend to carry out the threat. Rather, a prohibition on true threats “protect[s] individuals from the fear of violence” and “from the disruption that fear engenders,” in addition to protecting people “from the possibility that the threatened violence will occur.”

Virginia v. Black, 538 U.S. 343

Without having keep up the Phelps case there doesn't seem to be any "true threats."

[MrFun]

Huzzah for stereotyping - loinburger

I also love the double standards you and others have. When I have pointed out others stereotyping racial minority groups, women, or gays, you or others label me as a PC nut.

When I bring up a point based on demographic and polling information, you willfully misinterpret it as stereotyping.

[DinoDoc]

Flash, can you explain why this would not fall under the "fighting words" doctrine as defined by the Court?