Westboro Baptist Church, "Thank God for Dead Soldiers."

Court voids $5 million judgment against Westboro Baptist Church

By Bob Allen

Friday, September 25, 2009

RICHMOND, Va. (ABP) -- A federal appeals court has thrown out a $5 million judgment against members of a controversial Baptist church who picketed the funeral of a Marine killed in Iraq with inflammatory signs including "Thank God for Dead Soldiers." Westboro Baptist Church member Shirley Phelps-Roper at a funeral protest in 2005 in Smyrna, Tenn In 2007, a Maryland jury awarded $10 million in compensatory and punitive damages to Albert Snyder of York, Pa., father of Lance Cpl. Matthew Snyder, a 20-year-old Marine killed in Iraq. Snyder had sued members of Westboro Baptist Church in Topeka, Kan., for intrusion upon seclusion, intentional infliction of emotional distress and civil conspiracy after they showed up outside his son's funeral at a Catholic church in Westminster, Md., in March 2006 to protest -- as they have at several funerals of American soldiers killed in Iraq and Afghanistan. The protesters from the notoriously anti-gay church held placards with messages including "America is Doomed," "Pope in Hell," "Fag Troops," "Thank God for IEDs," "Priests Rape Boys" and "God Hates Fags." A judge later reduced the amount of damages to $5 million. On Sept. 24, however, a three-judge panel of the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Richmond, Va., ruled that while "distasteful and repugnant," the church's signs are protected as free speech by the Constitution. They said the Maryland court erred in letting a jury decide what a federal judge should have ruled on as a point of law. Namely, the appeals court said, the question in the case was whether the language used by the protesters could be interpreted as "objectively verifiable facts" about Snyder or his son or rather "imaginative and hyperbolic rhetoric intended to spark debate." The judges said even an article posted on a Westboro website alleging that Snyder taught his son to be an "idolater" by raising him as a Catholic was not a subject of "purely private concern," but rather an issue "of social, political or other interest to the community." Paraphrasing a ruling in another case invoking the First Amendment, the court said judges defending the Constitution "must sometimes share their foxhole with scoundrels of every sort, but to abandon the post because of the poor company is to sell freedom cheaply." Westboro Baptist Church has about 60 or 70 members. Fifty of them are children, grandchildren or in-laws of Fred Phelps, who founded the independent Baptist congregation and has been its only pastor for 52 years. Members of the church practice a "fire-and-brimstone" religion with beliefs including that God hates homosexuality and punishes America for its toleration of gays. Starting with a 1991 demonstration at a Topeka park known to be frequented by gay men, church members began staging anti-homosexual protests across the country. The group gained national prominence in 1998 when it picketed the funeral of Matthew Shepard, a University of Wyoming student who was tortured and murdered allegedly because he was gay. The church still remained in relative obscurity until 2005 when it moved beyond picketing gay-rights events and pro-gay politicians to demonstrating at funerals of fallen soldiers. Their message was that military casualties are God's judgment on the United States for, in their view, allowing gay rights to advance. A number of states passed laws limiting demonstrations at funerals, all aimed at the Kansas group. Church members, several of whom are lawyers, carefully abide by the provisions and defend their right to free speech under the First Amendment. Phelps, a disbarred lawyer who briefly attended Bob Jones University, was ordained as a Southern Baptist minister in 1947, but his church is not affiliated with the Southern Baptist Convention. In fact church members have picketed SBC annual meetings, claiming the convention's anti-gay position of "hate the sin but love the sinner" sends a false message to homosexuals that it's OK to be gay. -30- Bob AllenThis e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it is senior writer for Associated Baptist Press.

Going to the Southern "Baptist" Cone

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Episcopal Diocese of Fort Worth Bishop Jack Iker and the diocesan Standing Committee said January 9 that "the structure and polity of the Province of the Southern Cone would afford our diocese greater self-determination than we currently have under the General Convention of The Episcopal Church." Texas Time Warp By: Katie Sherrod Date Posted: 8/11/2004 Thirty years ago, I stood in my living room and wept with joy at the news that the Episcopal Church had voted to ordain women. But I live in the Episcopal Diocese of Fort Worth. This diocese came into existence in 1983, seven years after the Episcopal Church (USA) began ordaining women to the priesthood. Its founding bishop, Donald Davies, opposed the ordination of women, as did his successor, Clarence Pope. It is now thirty years later, and our current and third bishop, Jack L. Iker, continues as did his predecessors – he does not ordain women as priests, nor will he license a priest who is a woman to function in our diocese. He does not believe women are "proper matter" for the priesthood or, of course, the episcopate. What's more, the Diocese of Fort Worth has never ordained an African-American man as a priest, nor has it ordained an openly gay man. So what is it like, being a woman in the Episcopal Church in 2004, after thirty years of priests who are women? Well, in Fort Worth, it's a lot like I imagine the Episcopal Church was in the 1950s. Women are expected to defer to men, and laypeople are expected to defer to clergy, because "father knows best" and the Big Daddy of all the "fathers" is the bishop. People of color are kept pretty much with groups of other people of color. "Godhimself" is one word, because in Fort Worth, God IS male and the male is god. There is no inclusive or expansive language allowed in worship services. People can disagree with the bishop on issues such as the ordination of women, as long as they keep quiet about it and don't do anything to try to change things. Gays and lesbians can attend church as long as they stay under the radar screen of anyone who might be upset by their existence. "Don't ask, don't tell" is alive and thriving here and closets are jammed full. There are lots of people here who say they "hate the sin" but claim to "love the sinner," although one woman went to the microphone at our last diocesan convention to declare, "We can't love everybody !" It's not a total time warp. When our General Convention deputies assure the House of Deputies that there are women at altars in the Diocese of Fort Worth, they are referring to deacons who are women. Women also are allowed to be lay readers, and even Eucharistic ministers. Women can run for vestries and for convention delegates. We have very well-behaved women on the Standing Committee. I believe most rectors allow girls to be acolytes, although there are some priests here who "discourage" that, because it gets girls "too close to the altar" and "might give them ideas." A woman who wants to be a priest has to meet with Bishop Iker. He then either recommends her to James Stanton, bishop of Dallas [an adjoining diocese which, while theologically conservative, still permits ordained women to serve in ministry], or he doesn't. If he doesn't, then she's pretty much up a creek. If he does, and Bishop Stanton and his Commission on Ministry agree, the woman has to move to Dallas or figure out how to commute there as she goes through the process. Once she is ordained, there is no possibility of returning to the Diocese of Fort Worth as a priest. In the event a parish has the temerity to call a priest who is a woman, Bishop Iker has said she will be under the authority of the bishop of Dallas and will have neither seat, nor voice, nor vote at the Fort Worth diocesan convention. Her parish and its money, however, will remain in the Diocese of Fort Worth. This is the so-called Dallas Plan that Bishop Iker claims puts him in compliance with the canons on ordination. But whether it does that or not, and I don't think it does, the Dallas Plan does nothing for the lay people here who would like to experience the ministry of a priest who is a woman on a regular basis. But all this has been lost in the froth of male hysteria that followed the actions of General Convention in Minneapolis. I haven't seen this many privileged white males so upset since the Texas Senate was forced to add a woman's restroom when Barbara Jordan was elected in 1966. All of us here in the Diocese of Fort Worth are now part of the Network of Whining White Men And Their Allies, whether we like it or not. The list of people and places with whom we are in broken or impaired communion just keeps growing. Every since it was founded, this diocese has been in "impaired" communion with all bishops who ordain women, with all Anglican primates who ordain women, with all bishops who are women and, of course, with all priests who are women. We also are out of communion with any male priests ordained by bishops who are women. We are in broken or impaired communion with Bishop Gene Robinson and with all bishops and deputies who voted to confirm his election. We are in broken or impaired communion with all bishops who participated in his consecration. We are in broken or impaired communion with any bishop who allows same-sex blessings and with any priest who performs one. EXCEPT, we are in communion with any of the above who are in the Network. I think. It gets confusing. So what's it like, being a woman in the Episcopal Church thirty years after we began ordaining women? Well, it's a lot of work. Women have to be creative in finding ways to be fed spiritually, because chances are, their parishes ain't gonna do it. There are a few, very few, male priests who try hard, but they get tired too. Women who believe that they, too, are made in the image of God have to mentally edit our gender into androcentric liturgies. But you want to know the worst thing about this place? It's watching what it does to our children. It's watching a little girl whose mother is a priest but who has not been allowed to function here tell her mother, "You can't be a priest. Women can't be priests." It's hearing an eight-year-old boy who has been raised since birth by his loving grandmother and her partner say on his return from our diocesan church camp that, "there ought to be a law against two men or two women getting married." It's listening to brokenhearted parents tell of older children who will no longer go to an Episcopal Church in this diocese because they are so fed up with the bad theology and the views on women and gays. For many of us, it's a daily decision to remain in this church in this diocese. Thirty years ago, I stood in my living room and wept with joy at the news that the Episcopal Church had voted to ordain women. I remember thinking, "At last, a church that believes women really are part of the Body of Christ." I was wrong. -- Katie Sherrod is a freelance writer and television producer based in Fort Worth, Texas, and a contributing editor to The Witness . She served for many years as editor of Ruach , the journal of the Episcopal Women's Caucus. Katie may be reached by email at ks1246@aol.com .