The guy is insane and sounds it as well as being upset that the judgment came down against hom for $10.9 million dollars!!!!
[Update] Hat tip to Blue Crab Boulevard, punitive damages award at $8 million, added to the $2.9 million, Mr. Snyder has won and Westboro Baptist Church must pay almost $11 million dollars.
The jury first awarded $2.9 million in compensatory damages. It returned in the afternoon with its decision to award $6 million in punitive damages for invasion of privacy and $2 million for causing emotional distress.
Snyder's attorney, Craig Trebilcock, had urged jurors to determine an amount "that says don't do this in Maryland again. Do not bring your circus of hate to Maryland again."
GREAT NEWS. [End Update]
On october 25th, thanks Take Our Country Back noticing Michelle Malkin's story , we posted about the story of a father of a slain marine who filed an invasion of privacy suit against a fundamentalist church that pickets soldiers' funerals, Westboro Baptist Church, run by the Phelps family.
The father of a Marine killed in Iraq took the stand today in his invasion of privacy suit against a fundamentalist church that pickets soldiers' funerals, saying protesters carrying signs at his son's burial made him sick to his stomach.
Albert Snyder said he had hoped for a private funeral for his son, Lance Cpl. Matthew Snyder.
"They turned this funeral into a media circus and they wanted to hurt my family," Snyder testified. "They wanted their message heard and they didn't care who they stepped over. My son should have been buried with dignity, not with a bunch of clowns outside."
Hat Tip to Michelle Malkin, we see that Albert Snyder of York, Pa, the father of that slain solider has won his lawsuit against Westboro Baptist Church.
From the Baltimore Sun:
Albert Snyder of York, Pa., the father of a Westminster Marine who was killed in Iraq, today won his case in a Baltimore federal court against members of Topeka, Kan.-based Westboro Baptist Church who protested at his son's funeral last year.
The jury of five women and four men awarded Snyder $2.9 million in compensatory damages. The amount of punitive damages to be awarded has not yet been decided. The jury deliberated for about two hours yesterday and much of today.
Snyder was the first in the nation to attempt to hold members of Westboro Baptist Church legally liable for their shock protests at military funerals after the church protested the military's inclusion of gays at the funeral of Lance Cpl. Matthew A. Snyder, a 2003 Westminster High School graduate who died March 3, 2006, in a vehicle accident in Anbar province.
In June 2006, Snyder sued the tight-knit fundamentalist Christian church and three of its members individually. The father argued that Westboro's demonstrations exacerbated his pain and suffering in March 2006 while he mourned the death of his only son.
Specifically, he charged that they violated his privacy, intentionally inflicted emotional harm and engaged in a conspiracy to carry out their activities. The jury decided in Snyder's favor on every count.
The church and its members maintained that they did nothing wrong. They based their legal defense on the First Amendment, arguing that their protests were constitutionally protected. Their attorneys told jurors yesterday that Westboro members were expressing closely held religious beliefs about an immoral society, including the military, that has endorsed homosexuality.
From MM:
The Synder website has legal documents from the case here. Send him a note of congratulations and thanks here.
The fight’s not over.
After originally posting about this story and lawsuit, I went to the website run by the Westboro Baptist Church, called, GOD HATES FAGS, and found it filled with such hatred and wishes for the death of our troops and the death of children as I showed by the signs they hold up at their protests, in my follow up piece.
The Westboro Baptist Church (WBC) does exactly that on a page that is headed with "Thank God for Katrina".New Orleans, symbol of America, seen for what it is: a putrid, toxic, stinking cesspool of fag fecal matter.
America is irreversibly doomed. It is a sin to pray for the good of this evil fag nation.
Pray for more dead bodies floating on the fag-semen-rancid waters of New Orleans.
Those statements were all highlighted on the Katrina page.
Here is a video on their site. Watch the cop in this. He is disgusted.
On the page that shows what this disgusting, pathetic group, is about it says:WBC engages in daily peaceful sidewalk demonstrations opposing the homosexual lifestyle of soul-damning, nation-destroying filth. We display large, colorful signs containing Bible words and sentiments, including: GOD HATES FAGS, FAGS HATE GOD, AIDS CURES FAGS, THANK GOD FOR AIDS, FAGS BURN IN HELL, GOD IS NOT MOCKED, FAGS ARE NATURE FREAKS, GOD GAVE FAGS UP, NO SPECIAL LAWS FOR FAGS, FAGS DOOM NATIONS, THANK GOD FOR DEAD SOLDIERS, FAG TROOPS, GOD BLEW UP THE TROOPS, GOD HATES AMERICA, AMERICA IS DOOMED, THE WORLD IS DOOMED, etc.
On their front page, under the "featured posts" label, some of the headlines read:
Thank God for the California fires
Typical fag-ass American soldiers
If you need any further proof of how sick and twisted these people are, then just click and go to their site, see how much you can read before feeling sick to your stomach.
Click, go see my follow up piece and scroll to the bottom and see some of the signs they march with, some of the hatred they have children holding up at their protests.
I am glad Mr. Snyder won his lawsuit. It is time someone teach these hate filled people, that hide behind "religion" to spew their hate speech, time for them to understand that families have the right to bury their children, their spouses and their family members in peace and with dignity and mourn with having those funerals turned into a circus.
Portions of this post are cross posted at Stop the ACLU.
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