Lamentable Speech

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To the American Nazi Party, Hustler Magazine, and other odious figures in Supreme Court history, add the Rev. Fred Phelps Sr. and the members of the Westboro Baptist Church in Topeka, Kan. Their antigay protests at the funeral of a soldier slain in Iraq were deeply repugnant but protected by the First Amendment.

All of the sympathy in the case of Snyder v. Phelps, which was argued on Wednesday at the Supreme Court, goes to the family of Lance Cpl. Matthew Snyder, the fallen Marine. But as the appeals court in the case observed, using words of Justice Felix Frankfurter, “It is a fair summary of history to say that the safeguards of liberty have often been forged in controversies involving not very nice people.” That happened when the court protected Hustler’s right to mock the Rev. Jerry Falwell and the right of American Nazis to march in Skokie, Ill.

During the oral arguments, there were persistent questions from every justice but Clarence Thomas, seeking help in striking a balance between privacy and protest in the Internet age, and often unhelpful answers from the overmatched lawyers for each side, including Mr. Phelps’s daughter Margie.

In March 2006, a week after Corporal Snyder was killed in Iraq, his funeral in Westminster, Md., became a target for Mr. Phelps, the founder and pastor of a Baptist church where most of his flock are his children, grandchildren and in-laws.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/07/opinion/07thu1.html?th&emc=th