The Wesboro Baptist Church

The Westboro Baptist Church is an independent, small church operating in Topeka, Kansas. Pastor Fred Phelps leads the church. The church openly professes extremist views, and has gained notoriety from picketing military funerals, stating that deceased servicemen and women are the God's punishment for waging war. They call the U.S the “evil nation.” WBC's internet page, godhatesfags.com, believes that the church conducts “peaceful demonstrations opposing the fag lifestyle of soul-damning, nation-destroying filth.” WBC opened services in 1995, and started its picketing in 1991. It states that it has held 48,341 pickets to date.

Although the church only has a small gathering, it has created interest and sparked controversy. In 2007, WBC was the subject of Louis Theroux's BBC video documentary called The Most Hated Family in America. In 2011, the family of an U.S Marine whose funeral had been picketed filed a lawsuit against Phelps. Snyder v Phelps was heard by the U.S supreme court, which ruled eight-to-one in favor of WBC during appeal. This case provoked debate among scholars and the public, as people questioned the appropriateness of limiting free speech when applied to such protests.

The Westboro Baptist Church’s activities and views are abhorrent. However, the supreme court’s ruling in favor of Phelps in the Snyder case is one that must be supported, and more generally there is an undeniable right for such a group to exist. Picketing at funerals does deliver more extreme emotional damage families of the victims than other forms of free speech, but the remedy should not be to limit the right of these groups to picket. There are already existing limits on the proximity in which such picketing of the funerals can be, which mu...

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...s warranted.

Leiter’s recognition of the problem is important, and his analysis of causes sound, but any solution should provide a better recourse than what is taking place at the moment. In many real cases the difficulty of sifting through vile speech and counter-speech seems impossible, and as Leiter himself discovered, efforts to regulate cyber-cesspools tend to generate new and larger pools of abuse. One option could be for there to exist a government agency (much like the Federal Communications Commission) that reviewed websites, received complaints, and threatened to shut down such sites that displayed excessive amounts of abusive. Even so, these cites could simply change domain names. Also, would the government be willing to fund such an agency? Unfortunately, internet pollution won’t be going away soon. Perhaps the best hope is to develop greater tolerance.