Bill of Rights Current Event

The Bill of Rights was created to protect the individual’s rights and freedoms. One of the rights in the first amendment is freedom of speech, another is freedom of petition. Humans have these rights, until he or she starts taking away the rights of others by using one of their freedoms. This could be controversial, because how can people tell if their rights are seriously being taken away or not? A recent event, funeral protesting has started to cause a controversy over freedom of speech and petition.

Last March, members of the Westborough Baptist Church started picketing at military funerals. This was brought to court because of the protest at a funeral for a Marine who died in Iraq, but it was done at hundreds of other funerals. The picketers held signs saying “America is Doomed” and “Thank God for dead soldiers”. The members of the church think that God is punishing the United States for its acceptance of homosexuality. The father of the Marine, Albert Snyder, sued these protestors for the intentional infliction of emotional distress and won most of the jury, however, it was later overturned at an appeals court. There were two major reasons for this overturn. One was that the signs displayed matters of public concern, such as the fate of our nation and homosexuality in the military. Second, the protesters had the right to be where they were, they were 1,000 feet away from the funeral. The final decision was that “the Westboro church may speak out in many ways in many places and should not be allowed to capitalize on the private grief of others”(Justice Alito). This basically means that, even though they can discuss public issues openly, innocent victims should not be affected. In this event, I would have agreed with the defendants only because of the first amendment.

I feel as though the decision is correct, but only due to the bill of rights. However, my decision would have been to stop the protestors, because of moral reasons and the fact that the...