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A right to grieve in peace

Protesters from the Westboro Baptist Church have desecrated hundreds of military funerals since the invasion of Afghanistan in 2001.

Combat deaths, they believe, are God’s way of punishing America for condoning homosexuality. Their twisted logic has come to be defined by reprehensible slogans such as “God hates fags” and “Thank God for dead soldiers.”

These heartless zealots fail to comprehend that the men and women whose funerals they protest died defending their constitutional right to do so. It’s a sick, sad irony.

Where they stage their demonstrations is open to interpretation, however. And no one appreciates this dilemma more than Al Snyder, whose son, Matthew, died in a Humvee rollover four years ago in Iraq.

During his funeral, seven members of the Westboro flock set up shop outside St. John’s Catholic Church in Westminster, Md., as devastated family and friends gathered to mourn the 20-year-old lance corporal. One waved a picket sign reading “Semper Fi Fags.”

Citing emotional distress and invasion of privacy, Snyder sued Westboro and won. But a higher court overturned the ruling, saying the inflammatory signs are protected speech.

Now the Supreme Court has agreed to hear the case. This fall, the justices will set out to decide whether the congregation’s right to free speech trumps a family’s right to grieve in private.

It does not.

While some states have passed laws that require protesters to keep their distance from the bereaved, such measures are inconsistent and don’t go far enough. Ultimately, the only sensible solution is to ban picketing of any kind at funerals.

Members of Westboro Baptist have any number of ways to exercise freedom of expression, from standing on a soapbox to advertising their viewpoints to leading marches and so on. They have other options than to violate the private grief of others.