Turns out God might be paying attention to the situation with the Westboro Baptist Church after all. This past week, a $10 million fine was handed down to Fred Phelps and his fun-loving congregation of gay-bashing America-haters. The church appealed this massive ruling but, thankfully, the Supreme Court declined to hear it. The appeal did get the fine reduced to a mere $5 million though (very thoughtful of him). According to the Baltimore Sun:
[Judge] Bennett affirmed the jury's verdict in favor of Snyder's father, who sued the church for emotional distress and invasion of his family's privacy after Westboro Baptist Church members waved signs decrying homosexuality at his son's funeral in March 2006. But the judge also reduced the $10.9 million award announced in October to $5 million, noting constitutional concerns of appropriateness. He held up the jury's compensatory damage award of $2.9 million but reduced the total punitive damages to $2.1.From my understanding, this fine will essentially bankrupt the church completely. I would say "Let's hope they get the picture and decide to fade away completely," but we all know that that won't happen. So perhaps a better thing to say might be: May God throw up more bureaucratic obstacles to prevent them from wreaking further emotional havoc.
This is the best news I've read all week.
2 comments:
Best news I've heard all years, I must say. Woo-hoo!
Great news, but you just know the WBC will only use this to play up their "religious persecution / attacks from the Devil" shtick now, like the backlash and resistance is somehow proof they're on "God's" side.
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