Oberlin's President Says No

stradmom
Sun, 24 Jan 2016 00:47:58 +0000

For the record, Snyder v Phelps reaffirmed the right of the Westboro Baptist Church to protest at the funeral of a heterosexual Catholic soldier because they followed the time, place, and manner restrictions currently in force in the state of Maryland which required them to stay a specific distance away from the service. (They chose the Phelps funeral because they know soldier funerals attract media and the location of that one fit into their agenda for the day.) The First Amendment necessarily protects unpopular, even offensive, speech, because that’s the speech that NEEDS protection. If we all agreed with Westboro, their point of view wouldn’t need protection. An unfortunate side effect of that is sometimes hateful speech gets protected, but the hope is that as humans we can rise to our better selves.