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Old 11-01-2007, 09:04 AM   #1
piemaker720
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Jury Awards Father Nearly $11 Million in Funeral Protesters Case

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,307058,00.html


Quote:
The father of a fallen Marine was awarded nearly $11 million Wednesday in damages by a jury that found leaders of a fundamentalist church had invaded the family's privacy and inflicted emotional distress when they picketed the Marine's funeral.

The jury first awarded $2.9 million in compensatory damages. It returned later in the afternoon with its decision to award $6 million in punitive damages for invasion of privacy and $2 million for causing emotional distress to the Marine's father, Albert Snyder of York, Pa.

Snyder sued the Kansas-based Westboro Baptist Church for unspecified monetary damages after members staged a demonstration at the March 2006 funeral of his son, Lance Cpl. Matthew Snyder, who was killed in Iraq.
Church members routinely picket funerals of military personnel killed in Iraq and Afghanistan, carrying signs such as "Thank God for dead soldiers" and "God hates fags."

Snyder's suit named the church, its founder, the Rev. Fred Phelps, and his two daughters, Shirley Phelps-Roper and Rebecca Phelps-Davis, 46. Snyder claimed the protests intruded upon what should have been a private ceremony and sullied his memory of the event.
Snyder's suit named the church, its founder, the Rev. Fred Phelps, and his two daughters, Shirley Phelps-Roper and Rebecca Phelps-Davis, 46. Snyder claimed the protests intruded upon what should have been a private ceremony and sullied his memory of the event.

Attorneys for the church said in closing arguments Tuesday that the burial was a public event and that even abhorrent points of view are protected by the First Amendment, which guarantees freedom of speech and religion.

In his closing arguments during the punitive damages phase, plaintiff attorney Craig Trebilcock described church members as bullies who "seek out those among us who are at the weakest point in our lives."

"That's why they've gotten away with it until this point," the attorney said, adding that grieving families were too weak to fight back "until this man."
Now that church had no business at that funeral, that was wrong and they should have to pay. They need to learn you should not force your beliefs on someone else. I have nothing against religion except when this happens it makes me mad.
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