Excerpt
On March 10, 2006, in Westminster, Maryland, Albert Snyder gathered with friends and family in St. John’s Catholic Church to bury his son, Matthew, who had been killed by an improvised explosive device (IED) while serving in Iraq.
Roughly 1,000 yards away from the church, seven members of the Westboro Baptist Church (WBC) of Topeka, Kansas, had gathered for another purpose: to use Snyder’s funeral to demonstrate against the United States, the U.S. military, and the Catholic Church. Starting in the 1990s, the WBC began holding public protests across the country against what it identified as America’s “sins,”…
In This Issue
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Protesting Military Funerals
The First Amendment and the Right to Privacy
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Inside the Court
Status of Important Cases Before the Highest Tribunal
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Lower Court Holding
Decision of the Fourth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals
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Defamation Law
Supreme Court Precedent
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Before the Court
The Justices Weigh in During Oral Arguments
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Pro & Con
Does the Constitution Protect the Right of Protestors to Demonstrate During a Private Citizen’s Military Funeral?
