The Supreme Court is off and running, hearing oral arguments in several interesting cases this week. By far and away, however, the most controversial is the dispute between the family of a soldier killed in Iraq and the Westboro Baptist Church, who came to his funeral with picket signs.

The Phelps family contends that while "99% of Americans see this boy as a hero", he's really paying for the sins of a country that supports same sex marriage and other "sins". In their eyes, the US (and deaths of US troops in Iraq and Afghanistan) represent God's retribution for being a "godless country". In addition to their presence at the funeral, they published a video they called the "epic" on the Internet.

The soldier's father, Al Snyder, sued them for $5 million and won, but the case was reversed on appeal. Mr. Snyder was ordered to pay all of Westboro's court costs, adding deep insult to deeper injury.

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We all know about the Phelps family, and we also know how much they feed on hate. But this is still America, and I don't think the court will confirm the lower court's attempt to stifle their disgusting speech at soldiers' funerals:

The Supreme Court's 2010-2011 term gets under way next week, and the justices are wasting no time in tackling a case that has the potential to redraw the boundaries of free speech under the First Amendment.
On Oct. 6, the court will hear arguments in a highly charged case known as Snyder v. Phelps.

It sets a grieving father who lost his son in Iraq against religious protesters who picketed near the fallen soldier's funeral. The father claims emotional distress and says such demonstrations should not be allowed; the protesters say they were protected under the freedom of speech and peaceful assembly tenets of the First Amendment.

The drama perhaps couldn’t feature a more vilified band of provocateurs – the infamous Phelps family of the Westboro Baptist Church in Topeka, Kan., known for their protests at military funerals, where they display signs sporting slogans like "Thank God for Dead Soldiers" and "Don’t Pray for the USA.” They say the signs convey their belief that American soldiers' deaths are God’s punishment for the country’s tolerance of homosexuality. They also speak out against the Catholic Church.

While most people are deeply offended by the Phelpses’methods and message, both may be protected under the First Amendment, even though their activities took place near a funeral where the attendees could not simply leave because they found the speech hurtful.

The case has gotten a lot of attention from First Amendment scholars and has also generated an outpouring of support for the grieving father, Albert Snyder. The Veterans of Foreign Wars, 42 U.S. senators and 48 states and the District of Columbia are just some of the groups that have filed briefs in his favor. When an appeals court ordered Snyder to pay about $16,000 of the Phelpses’ legal fees, Fox News host Bill O’Reilly stepped up to make sure he had enough money to cover it.

“A lot of people have an understandable visceral reaction against this speech, but the First Amendment often protects speech that is vile,” says Eugene Volokh, a professor at UCLA School of Law and a First Amendment scholar who submitted a brief to the Supreme Court supporting the Phelpses’ position in court.

Come on, you knew this was coming! Thank you, corporate media!

Topeka’s Westboro Baptist Church announced tonight that it plans to burn the Qur’an and an American flag on Sept. 11, though the exact time and location haven’t been determined, a church spokeswoman said.

The burning would occur the same day that a Florida pastor had threatened to burn Qur’ans, which drew condemnation from President Obama, religious leaders and others.

Shirley Phelps-Roper, who announced Westboro Baptist’s plan, said they don’t think that pastor, Terry Jones, will carry out the burning.

Westboro Baptist Church has received international condemnation for its protests at the funerals of gay people and U.S. servicemembers. Church members burned a Qur’an two years ago in Washington, D.C.

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Last night Bill O'Reilly announced he was doing an admirable thing -- covering the legal expenses of Fred Phelps victim Albert Snyder -- and in doing so, seemed to express an admirable sentiment: hate talk is a bad thing, and all sides should eschew it.

Except, of course, by Bill's lights, the flow of hate is equal on both sides:

There is far too much hatred in America. That's obvious. It comes from both sides. The Michigan militia and the Westboro Baptist Church are far-right nuts, but there are just as many far-left idiots doing vile things.

Thirty-eight-year-old Norman Leboon has been charged with threatening to kill Republican Congressman Eric Cantor. Apparently Leboon wants to kill Cantor and his family and is now being held without bail. It looks like this guy is simply nuts. Ideology might not be in play.

However, a brick was thrown through the window of the Michigan Republican Party headquarters on Monday. Obviously that's political.

The point is that the situation in America is reaching critical mass. There is far too much hatred in the air.

The press is obviously pumping up inappropriate things that happen on the right and pretty much ignoring hateful things on the left. Bernie Goldberg and I established that on Monday.

But every member of the media should condemn all hate speech and violent activity. It is simply un-American.

Then O'Reilly had Laura Ingraham come on to point out that yeah, those left-wingers can be every bit as nasty as the right-wingers.

Tell you what, Bill and Laura. Come and talk to us again about how nasty and wrong hateful talk from the left is when:

-- A liberal walks into a church and opens fire on the congregation because they're all a bunch of conservatives and he wants to kill as many right-wingers as he can.

-- A liberal walks into another church and shoots a doctor in the head.

-- A liberal shoots three police officers who come to his door because he fears the president is going to take his guns away.

-- A liberal walks into the Holocaust Museum and shoots a guard because he hates Jews and believes it's time to start a race war.

-- A liberal walks into the Pentagon and opens fire because he believes the government is plotting against its citizens.

-- A pack of gun-loving liberals forms a plot to kill law-enforcement officers and start a revolution.

See, that isn't happening. But it is happening with characters from the right, opening fire on various perceived "liberal" targets, law enforcement officers, and government employees. (In order, they've happened in Knoxville, in Wichita, in Pittsburgh, in Washington, twice, and this past weekend in the Midwest.)

No doubt there are some liberals who use ugly and sometimes even violent rhetoric. But there's a big difference between what's actually happening on the ground in terms of the behavior of right-wingers and left-wingers when it comes to acting on the rhetoric: The fanatics on the right are decidedly more violent, and act out violently with much greater frequency.

Why is that? Well, there are two big differences between left-wing and right-wing hate talk, one qualitative, the other quantitative:

-- Right-wing talk is decidedly more violent and openly eliminationist -- which is to say, it speaks more openly about eliminating entire blocs of their fellow Americans, and it does so by harkening to violent themes with much greater frequency.

-- The sheer volume of right-wing hate talk is so much greater. Not only are there more examples, by an exponential factor, of right-wing hatefulness, but the talk is emanating from the upper reaches of the right-wing hierarchy: on TV and radio talk shows with hosts who spew eliminationist hatred daily to audiences of millions daily, and among politicians who represent the supposed mainstream of officialdom, and thus lend their imprimatur to such behavior.

The talk shows, in particular, are a real problem. Especially when you have hosts who repeatedly call someone a "baby killer" day in and day out.

Now that's hate talk. But of course, Bill O'Reilly will never admit to that.

Al Snyder's son died in Iraq in May of 2006. Members of the rabidly anti-gay Westboro Baptist Church picketed his son Matthew's funeral, causing immense personal, emotional pain for him, his family and their friends.

Snyder won a $5 million civil lawsuit against the church and the Phelps family, but it was recently tossed out of a federal court. To add insult to injury, the court has now ordered Snyder to pay all of the church's legal fees:

BALTIMORE — Lawyers for the father of a Marine who died in Iraq say a court has ordered him to pay legal costs for the anti-gay protesters who picketed his son's funeral.

The protesters are led by Fred Phelps of Westboro Baptist Church. Albert Snyder of York, Pa., had won a $5 million verdict against Phelps, but it was thrown out on appeal.

The U.S. Supreme Court agreed earlier this month to consider whether the protesters' provocative messages, which include phrases like "Thank God for dead soldiers," are protected by the First Amendment.

Lawyers say Snyder already is struggling to come up with the fees associated with filing the brief with the high court. Read on...

I really hate to waste Mr. Amato's bandwidth on these despicable people, but Mr. Snyder needs our moral support as well as help with legal costs. I hope he doesn't pay one thin dime to these people, but he'll need lawyers to help continue the fight. There is a legal fund set up for him, if you'd like to show him some love, you can do so by clicking here.

It's all about the company you keep...

The government published a blacklist on Tuesday of people recently banned from the country including a Hamas lawmaker and a Jewish extremist, as well as anti-gay protestors and a far-right US talk show host.

Home Secretary Jacqui Smith said she decided to publish the "name and shame" list -- which identifies 16 people banned since last October -- for the first time to clarify what behaviour Britain will not tolerate.

"I think it's important that people understand the sorts of values and sorts of standards that we have here, the fact that it's a privilege to come and the sort of things that mean you won't be welcome in this country," she said.

"If you can't live by the rules that we live by ... we should exclude you from this country and, what's more, now we will make public those people that we have excluded," she told the GMTV broadcaster.

Ouch. That's gotta hurt. Michael Weiner Savage is up there with fellow hatemongers Fred and Shirley Phelps, as well as a former Ku Klux Klan grand wizard, two Russian skinheads responsible for 20 racially motivated murders and -- I'm sure this is just killing Weiner Savage -- several Muslim clerics accused of whipping up hate and fomenting terrorism within the Muslim community. Full list here.

Weiner Savage had a predictably snide response and is planning on suing...someone. (link goes to WorldNetDaily)

"Darn! And I was just planning a trip to England for their superior dental work and cuisine," he recalled thinking.

"Then it sank in," he told WND, "and I said, 'She said this is the kind of behavior we won't tolerate? She's linking me with mass murderers who are in prison for killing Jewish children on buses? For my speech? The country where the Magna Carta was created?'"[..]

Savage said he wants top First Amendment attorneys to represent him "in a major international case."

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Can anyone tell me which version of the Bible Fred Phelps reads? You know, the one that omits all of Jesus's teachings of loving one another and not being judgmental?

WBBM780 (Chicago): (h/t OK)

An anti-gay religious group known for protesting at the funerals of American soldiers killed in Iraq is planning on appearing at services for those killed on Monday as well.

The Topeka, Kan.-based Westboro Baptist Church (WBC), which is not affiliated with any national Baptist organization, announced plans to protest at victims' funerals only hours after 32 people were killed in the worst mass shooting in U.S. history. They also may protest at other events on the Virginia Tech campus.

The organization, founded and led by Fred Phelps, believes the United States has condemned itself to destruction by accepting homosexuality and other "sins of the flesh." Phelps' daughter, Shirley Phelps-Roper, said the Virginia Tech teachers and students who died on Monday brought their fate upon themselves by not being true Christians.

"The evidence is they were not Christian. God does not do that to his servants," Phelps-Roper said. "You don't need to look any further for evidence those people are in hell."

Cho Seung-Hui, the Virginia Tech student responsible for the killings who took his own life after the shootings, was sent by God to punish those he killed, and America as a whole, for moral decline, said Phelps-Roper, while adding that she believes Cho is also in hell for violating God's commandment to not kill.

"He is in hell," Phelps-Roper said. "But he was also fulfilling the word of God."

The level of hatred necessary to act this way towards any human being, but especially families that have been through such a horrifying experience is unspeakable in its evil. Jesus weeps for you, Phelps.

While discussing the President's low poll ratings on the TODAY Show, Chris Matthews said that Bush, Rove and his team should be listening to Michael Savage to get their intel. The name of the segment should have been, " Why are Bush's poll numbers in the tank?" instead of "Can Bush Rebound?" but as you may remember, Chris praised Savage before on the Don Imus show-saying: "The wonderful Michael Savage..."

Download | play -WMP Download | play QT later

Savage was fired from MSNBC after he said:

MICHAEL SAVAGE: Oh, you're one of the sodomites. You should only get AIDS and die, you pig. How's that? Why don't you see if you can sue me, you pig. You got nothing better than to put me down, you piece of garbage. You have got nothing to do today, go eat a sausage and choke on it. Get trichinosis.

Why is Matthews so enamored with Savage? Apparently Chris will be citing Fred Phelps as a legitimate source of information anytime now.

Members of a church say God is punishing American soldiers for defending a country that harbors gays, and they brought their anti-gay message to the funerals Saturday of two Tennessee soldiers killed in Iraq.... The Rev. Fred Phelps, founder of Westboro Baptist in Kansas, contends that American soldiers are being killed in Iraq as vengeance from God for protecting a country that harbors gays...read on"

This Circus Clown is definitely in the "Hall of Fame." Will the media cover this or protect Phelps because he aligns himself with religion?

Some nut to proclaim that Hurricane Katrina is an act of God against the U.S.? ( Fred Phelps doesn't count)

(Update)-The Carpetbagger Report has one:... The message was crafted by people at Christian Life and Liberty.net, who are convinced Americans are responsible for the storm's devastation. The group's email explained...read on

Update- AmericaBlog: Religious right group, heralded by top religious right leaders, says God destroyed New Orleans because of gays