Fred Phelps Family Fundamentally Offensive

Something I happened to stumble upon:Fighting words - WikipediaWhich led to:Chaplinsky v. New Hampshire - WikipediaWhich contained:

quote:

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In late November 1941, Walter Chaplinsky, a Jehovah's Witness, was using the public sidewalk as a pulpit in downtown Rochester, passing out pamphlets and calling organized religion a "racket." After a large crowd had begun blocking the roads and generally causing a scene, a police officer removed Chaplinsky to take him to police headquarters. Along the way he met the town marshal, who had earlier warned Chaplinsky to keep it down and avoid causing a commotion. Upon meeting the marshal for the second time, Chaplinsky attacked him verbally. The complaint against Chaplinsky charged that he had shouted: "You are a God-damned racketeer" and "a damned Fascist" and was arrested. Chaplinsky admitted that he said the words charged in the complaint, with the exception of the name of the Deity.

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For this, he was arrested under a New Hampshire statute preventing intentionally offensive speech being directed at others in a public place. Under NH.'s Offensive Conduct law (chap. 378, para. 2 of the NH. Public Laws) it is illegal for anyone to address another person with "any offensive, derisive or annoying word to anyone who is lawfully in any street or public place...or to call him by an offensive or derisive name."

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Chaplinsky was fined, but he appealed, claiming the law was "vague" and infringed upon his First and Fourteenth Amendment rights to free speech.

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The U.S. Supreme Court upheld the arrest (and apparently to conviction and fine):

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There are certain well-defined and narrowly limited classes of speech, the prevention and punishment of which have never been thought to raise any constitutional problem. These include the lewd and obscene, the profane, the libelous, and the insulting or "fighting" words those which by their very utterance inflict injury or tend to incite an immediate breach of the peace. It has been well observed that such utterances are no essential part of any exposition of ideas, and are of such slight social value as a step to truth that any benefit that may be derived from them is clearly outweighed by the social interest in order and morality.

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It seems that if it was constitutional to come down on Chaplinsky, it would likewise be constitutional to come down on Fred Phelps and his gang. But more recent (SCOTUS?) decisions said otherwise.MooseAdded by edit - Another Phelps topic and related link: Fred Phelps gets a chance to do the right thingKansas church liable in Marine funeral protestThat decision was overturned, wasn't it?Edited by Minnemooseus, : See above.