I don't watch O'Reilly and am slow to this aspect of the story - apparently he promised to pay the $16,500 the US Court of Appeals recently orderd Albert Snyder to pay for the legal expenses of the hateful and despicable Westboro Church.
I will assume the best about O'Reilly here, and take this as a genuine effort to help someone who has clearly been injured by these crazy, spiteful people (Note: I have observed these Westboro people first hand, when they came to my small town to protest and spread their vile at the funeral of several young adults and their young children, so I am not very objective about them). Still, this is not unmixed. O’Reilly also said “It’s obvious they were disturbing the peace by disrupting the funeral. They should have been arrested, but our system is so screwed up, so screwed up, that loons are allowed to run wild.” I don't know the specific details of this case; when the Westboro crazies came to our town they were very careful about only standing on public property and not interfering with traffic. We knew they were coming, so family members and others were taken to the church by a route that mostly by-passed them, but they were in clear sight from the church, and could be heard. I thought they were obscene and disgusting - but as long as they kept on public property, and did not threaten or endanger anyone, I thought they should be allowed to have their hate-fest. Our response was to ignore them, not confront them, and not give them or the media any excuse to give them exposure. It pretty much worked. Perhaps in the Snyder case Westboro strayed on to private property, or were violent in some way. But if not I think the courts have done the right thing in protecting their freedom of speech; laws against disturbing the peace can not be allowed to infringe upon the peaceful expression of political speech. And we should not let the likes of Bill O'Reilly use the heartbreaking details of this story to gut the protections of the First Amendment, just because in this case the Freedom of Speech side is unpopular - obviously, it is in cases like this that the 1st Amendment proves itself. *************** http://technorati.com/politics/article/bill-oreilly-covers-legal-fees-for/ My hat's off to Bill O'Reilly. When Marine lance corporal Matthew Snyder died in 2006 in an automobile accident in Iraq, over 1,500 members of Westboro Baptist Church demonstrated at his funeral<http://newsmax.com/InsideCover/oreilly-marine-funeral-protesters/2010/03/30/id/354287?s=al&promo_code=9AAC-1>. The Church believes that God is punishing the United States for its acceptance of gay people. Their members were waving signs and protesting in view of TV cameras and the whole episode was broadcast on live TV until someone wised up and switched off the cameras. Matthew’s father Albert Snyder was stunned. Snyder filed a lawsuit against the church and a jury awarded him nearly $11 million in civil and punitive damages. The Church took it to the U.S. Court of Appeals, where the verdict was overturned on the grounds that the church’s First Amendment right must be upheld. In addition, the court ordered Mr. Snyder to reimburse $16,000 to the church members for their legal expenses. On Tuesday, cable news host Bill O’Reilly said that he would write a check for $16,500 to Albert Snyder to help him pay for the fine. “That is an outrage,” O’Reilly said, “I will pay Mr. Snyder’s obligation. I am not going to let this injustice stand.” O’Reilly also criticized our justice system by saying, “It’s obvious they were disturbing the peace by disrupting the funeral. They should have been arrested, but our system is so screwed up, so screwed up, that loons are allowed to run wild.” Snyder is planning to appeal to the Supreme Court, where the deck is stacked heavily to the right as we have seen from the action of<http://technorati.com/politics/article/supreme-activism-from-the-benches/>Chief Justice Alito and other political hacks. The question is when even the number one right-wing TV personality cries foul, whether or not the High Court will add to that voice. -- TV or Not TV .... The Smartest (TV) People! You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "TV or Not TV" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/tvornottv?hl=en To unsubscribe, reply using "remove me" as the subject.
