The Importance Of Hate Speech

In Snyder v. Phelps, dissenting Justice Samuel Alito likened the protests of the Westboro Baptist Church members to fighting words and of a personal character, and thus not protected speech. The majority disagreed and stated that the protester's speech was not personal but public, and that local laws which can shield funeral attendees from protesters are adequate for protecting those in times of emotional

In the name of free speech, hate speech should not be tolerated. Hate speech has devastating effects on the people and communities it is targeted at. Left unchecked hate speech can lead to harmful and violent effects. Over the past few years, the effects of hate speech used on women, homosexuals, ethnic groups and religious minorities have become more and more apparent. Hate speech can be very divisive in many of the situations it is used, depending on who interprets the expression can vary how people react, due to hate speech, not being easy defend when it does not hurt that certain person or community. If left uncheck hate speech can develop into harmful narratives that remain. While hate speech is not against the law, some have begun

The Westboro Baptist Church is a group that has been in the spotlight for the last two decades because of their unusual tactic of picketing at soldier’s funerals. The act is motivated by the notion that America’s moral are being corrupted by their acceptance of homosexuality. The act of picketing of soldier’s funerals according to the group is motivated by the fact that it is a time when mourners are emotionally vulnerable and they think of their mortality. They believe that by picketing in soldier’s funerals their message is stronger. However, this tactic has caused much consternation from both the public and the government. In the interest of the public, state legislatures have enacted laws against the actions of the Westboro Baptist Church. The landmark case of Snyder v. Phelps would have been the deciding factor against the group, but the Supreme Court held in favor of the group because their actions were protected by the First Amendment. This then would present the notion that the First Amendment trumped public interest in the decision. However, that is not the case because the case was an IIED case among others, it was a personal one. As long as the group coordinates with public authorities and does not break laws, then their acts are nothing more than nuisances that should not get in the way of celebrating the life of the dead.

Funeral protests have been an issue for years. During this most recent war, as soldiers were coming home to be laid to rest, Westboro Baptist Church made headlines by protesting at the funerals of fallen soldiers. During the services, members of the church would gather outside of many of the military funerals waving signs that had offensive messages on them such as, “God Hates You”, and “Thank God for Dead Soldiers”. The members of this church believe that the death of the soldiers is God’s punishment for the tolerance of homosexuality in the United States. Last year the U.S, Supreme Court ruled that the First Amendment protects these groups and any others who

Snyder v. Phelps case is about the protest of Westboro Baptist Church (WBC) supporters at the funeral of Albert Snyder’s son protested against the acceptance of homosexuality by the US (Facts and Case Summary - Snyder v. Phelps). They showed different anti-gay signs targeting many people. Albert Snyder then sued the demonstrators by saying that these signs caused him anxiety, sorrow and pain. The Court didn’t protect Albert Snyder because they say that the demonstrators were protesting against society as a whole and not against his son. They also add that the signs shown on protest were protected under the First Amendment and told Snyder that if he continues this case he will have to pay a large amount of money to the church. In this case the main problem is whether the protesters have the right to protest at funerals of soldiers against homosexuality. In this policy memo, based on the concepts of equity, freedom of speech and liberty three main alternative solutions will be considered to this problem.

I did some research and what keeps coming up is the U.S. Marine Matthew Snyder. The church protested his funeral and it sparked tremendous outrage amongst a lot of people. What is sad is that the court ruled that the protesters were protected under free speech. The ruling was an 8-1 and was won by a land slide in the churches favor. This blew me out of the water reading that Chief Justice John Roberts stated that "Whether the First Amendment prohibits holding Westboro liable for its speech in this case turns largely on whether that speech is of public or private concern." And in this specific case, the judges determined the words on Westboro’s signs indeed dealt with “matters of public import” (Gregory 2011). Free speech is a beautiful thing, but when you want to basically shit on someone’s funeral especially when that person fought for your freedom is wrong in my eyes and there should be bans for protesters on certain occasions. Private matters should be only the family and others not a huge mob of people ragging on soldiers and other situations. I am not a soldier and it made me mad that these people would basically slander this man who died to fight for

Hate speech is a term of art in legal and political theory that is used to refer to verbal conduct – and other symbolic, communicative action –which willfully attacks a person or group based on attributes such as race, religion, ethnic origin, sexual orientation, disability, or gender. Hate speech thus includes things like identity-prejudicial abuse and harassment, certain uses of slurs and epithets, some extremist political and religious speech. For example, statements to the effect that all Muslims are terrorists, or that gay people are second -class human beings, and certain displays of hate symbols like swastikas or burning crosses are part of it. Those such activities are classified as hate speech if, and insofar as, they convey the idea that belonging to a particular social group warrants someone’s being held in or treated with contempt. However, Freedom of speech is the most important and basic right that a human in every country deserves. Freedom of speech and hate speech are two opposite things. Therefore, the government needs to draw a line between hate speech and freedom of speech to protect a citizen. Hate speech should be banned and extreme speech regulated because it is one of the reasons for many negative consequences in human lives

The case arose after the death of Marine Lance Corporal Matthew Snyder during his service in Iraq. The Westboro Baptist Church, known for their intolerance of homosexuality, picketed his funeral, wielding picket signs with hateful messages on them such as, “Thank God for Dead Soldiers,” and “You’re Going to Hell” (Snyder v. Phelps, 2011).

Envision ambulating down the street and then out of the blue someone shouts obscenities predicated on the way people look or because of what they affiliate with. Incidents involving animosity happen everyday, and most are looked at as daily occurrences. With the current state of hate speech laws, there is nothing that could be done to put culpability on the instigator. Hate has a strong connection to United States history. Slaves were a result of being hateful to those who were different, and Jim Crow laws were also a consequence of this hatred. As much time has passed since then, America has become more progressive, although there are still people who are hateful of others for they way they are. Hate speech laws are necessary in the United States and should be passed because passing them would create and foster a more tolerant society, help to decrease the negative risk associated with them, and prevent violent acts of hate which tend to be preceded by hate speech.

When it comes to this student in Michigan at Franklin D. Roosevelt that was case for her. When reading the article of "HS Student Asked to Remove anti War Shirt" by Tamar Lewis the first amendment to even wear a shirt of his choice wasn’t respected , as Bretton Barber a H.S junior wore a shirt with ex-president George Bush face on it with the words of "international Terrorists " as well. Not only did the school take affiance to it but they sent him home as well. In times like these I think there are good uses of free speech and bad , and this is no were near the bad kind. I think many need to look into this right of the freedom of speech. As you can't even wear a shirt you may strongly believe in , but there can be people in today's world in a "protest" calling people the "N" word to people's faces. To calling homosexual people god mistake is more right than a shirt then I don’t know what Americas come to. As in the article you read on how a 17 year old boy is getting criticized for not maintain an environment of "conductive to learning". At the time maybe I understand we were gearing up for a war but even if that the case how can you take his rights as a free American away from him. Just because he may feel differently than the next one hundred people around him is not right nor is a good look on the route of the United States as a

Freedom of speech, the most quoted right of the United States Constitution but, what does this freedom really mean? People have struggled over this issue time and time again, arguing a whole array of things from total censorship to none at all. According to the First Amendment, "Congress shall make no law... abridging the freedom of speech" (First Amendment). Many argue that this gives U.S. citizens the right to say whatever they want, without exception. However, many disagree with this statement (maybe elaborate on this sentence). According to the Supreme Court there are a few exceptions to this freedom. Slander, defamation, fighting words and obscenity are all not protected under the First Amendment. The main issue derived from this is whether or not the government should be able to censor hate speech or if that is a violation of the Constitution. One one hand, it is argued that it should be allowed in order to protect minorities and individuals from being slandered and targeted. On the other hand, it is said that the government should not have that authority, as such laws will undoubtedly lead to censorship in a way that truly does limit free speech. These issues have been discussed and argued over for years, with the focus always returning to the text of the First Amendment. The First Amendment provides valuable guidance to the country and is viable on determining laws and court cases concerning the issue of hate speech in present day America. Although, it has proven

In the case of Snyder vs Phelps The family of a departed Marine named Lance Cpl, Matthew Snyder put forth legal action against parties of the Westboro Baptist Church for picketing at his funeral. According to the family the church was responsible for defamation, invasion of privacy and the deliberate punishment of emotional suffering, The members of the church held signs that read "Thank God for dead soldiers" and "Fag troops" at Snyder's funeral. U.S. District Judge Richard Bennett granted the Snyder family $5 million in damages. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit ruled that the decision violated the First Amendment's protections of religious expression. Does the First Amendment defend protesters who deliberately cause emotional

Background: The (Snyder v. Phelps) case dealt with the First Amendment and what it protects. A congregation of the Westboro Baptist Church was protesting Matthew Snyder’s funeral and caused the family a lot of emotional distress. Matthew Snyder was a former Marine who died while serving a tour in Iraq. The protestors were holding up signs that said, “Semper Fi fags, God Hates the USA, Thank God for IEDS.” (Lee Epstein, Pgs 469-72). The Westboro Baptist church has picketed many military funerals. They resent that the military will allow homosexuals to fight for their country. In June 2006, the father, Albert Snyder filed the lawsuit against the Westboro Church. He claimed that the protest caused the family intense emotional distress and that the church intentionally meant to inflect the distress. The Westboro Baptist church said that what they did was protected under the First Amendment. Although this is the first court case that’s been brought up against the Westboro Baptist church and made it to the Supreme Court. They’ve done forms of protests for many years. For example they’ve picketed anything they believe to have in relation to homosexuality. They’ve even protested some of the Kansas

Just a couple of months ago white supremacists rallied in Charlottesville to protest the tearing down of the statue of Robert E Lee. The racism and hate they spread through their march is unquestionably disgusting and serves no purpose in our society today. This event has led to social media sites such as Twitter to crack down even harder in a plight they started over a year ago to silence hateful speech. While there are some occasional dissenters, the general population agrees with the opinion that this speech is awful in every sense. With that being said, censoring their right to free speech is a bit too rash. We can all agree that free speech is one of the most important rights we have, and with President Trump throwing around the term “fake news” at major news organizations, it is more important than ever to protect that freedom. The article “The case for restricting hate speech” by Laura Beth Nielsen of the Los Angeles Times gives an argument for why hate speech should be censored. While she provides valid points, with the absence of factual statistics, none of them are strong enough to support her thesis that hate speech should be banned. I believe that in almost every instance, hate speech should remain protected just as much as our right to free speech.

Like most democratic nations in the world, the United States has had its own fair share of issues with hate speech. There has been a lot of controversy over whether hate speech should be regulated. In analyzing the concept of free speech, one cannot ignore that it does not occur in a vacuum. There have been all types of debasements ranging from ethnic, religious, racial and gendered stereotyping. Freedom of speech inherently includes all other fundamental human rights. Hence, as acknowledged through natural rights, other rights and personhood should adamantly be included within this scope of this protection. Hate speech is a limit on free speech, as it not only puts the victim under deliberate psychological and physical harm, but also