I am sorry if this fact has already been circulated on the list, but was the protest at issue loud enough to be heard at the location of, and during, the funeral ceremony? If so, would this fact pattern be analogous to disruption of a public university graduation ceremony by students protesting tuition hikes?
PLEASE NOTE NEW ADDRESS Eric Rassbach National Litigation Director The Becket Fund for Religious Liberty 3000 K St. NW, Suite 220 Washington, DC 20007 USA +1.202.349.7214 (tel.) +1.202.955.0090 (fax) www.becketfund.org NOTICE: This e-mail is from a law firm, The Becket Fund for Religious Liberty, and is intended solely for the use of the person(s) to whom it is addressed. If you believe you received this e-mail in error, please notify the sender immediately, delete the e-mail from your computer and do not copy or disclose it to anyone else. If you are not an existing client of The Becket Fund, do not construe anything in this e-mail to make you a client unless it contains a specific statement to that effect and do not disclose anything to The Becket Fund in reply that you expect or want it to hold in confidence. If you properly received this e-mail as a client, co-counsel or retained expert of The Becket Fund, you should maintain its contents in confidence in order to preserve the attorney-client or work product privilege that may be available to protect confidentiality. -----Original Message----- From: religionlaw-boun...@lists.ucla.edu [mailto:religionlaw-boun...@lists.ucla.edu] On Behalf Of Volokh, Eugene Sent: Wednesday, March 10, 2010 12:25 PM To: 'Law & Religion issues for Law Academics' Subject: RE: Cert. granted in Snyder v. Phelps. I appreciate Alan's points (though I probably disagree with him on the bottom line), and they might have been relevant to picketing in front of the funeral. But here, as Alan's first sentence acknowledges, liability was based partly on the Web site and partly on speech a thousand feet from the funeral. I take it that Alan agrees that the first class of speech wouldn't be covered by his theory. But beyond this, let me ask: I take it that some of the attendees at the funeral -- for instance, the decedent's comrades in arms -- might indeed be open to the proposition that God disapproves of America's tolerance for homosexuality, and that God rightly retaliates against America because of that. Those are certainly not my views, but I can certainly imagine a considerable number of people, including fellow soldiers, having them (though only a tiny fraction would actually express them on the occasion of the funeral). Presumably some of those fellow soldiers, even if upset by the speech, might thus be "potentially willing" to hear it (especially since a funeral tends to draw many attendees, and not just a very small circle), just as some of the residents of Skokie might have been anti-Semites even while many others were Jews. To what extent should that be relevant under Alan's analysis? Eugene Alan Brownstein writes: > > Although there are important limiting facts in this > > case that distinguish it from a clearer "picketing > > at a funeral case," at its core this case raises > > the question of whether speakers can choose a > > location for their offensive speech that targets > > their victims in an egregiously hurtful way when > > alternative sites for communicating their message to > > the public are equally accessible and at least as > > likely to be heard by potentially willing listeners. > > I'm still thinking about the answer to that > > question. _______________________________________________ To post, send message to Religionlaw@lists.ucla.edu To subscribe, unsubscribe, change options, or get password, see http://lists.ucla.edu/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/religionlaw Please note that messages sent to this large list cannot be viewed as private. Anyone can subscribe to the list and read messages that are posted; people can read the Web archives; and list members can (rightly or wrongly) forward the messages to others. _______________________________________________ To post, send message to Religionlaw@lists.ucla.edu To subscribe, unsubscribe, change options, or get password, see http://lists.ucla.edu/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/religionlaw Please note that messages sent to this large list cannot be viewed as private. Anyone can subscribe to the list and read messages that are posted; people can read the Web archives; and list members can (rightly or wrongly) forward the messages to others.
