Lawsuit Underway Against Church That Protests Soldiers' Funerals

by Rob Walker | October 22, 2007 at 07:19 am

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Looks like Phelps and his horde of lawyers are finally on the receiving end, after a grieving family decided to sue the church members for protesting their son's funeral.

Phelps and Co. have been protesting soldiers' funerals for years, saying deaths in combat are directly related to the US's more liberal attitude towards homosexuality. Anytime someone attacks the group or slanders them, a team of lawyers descends on them.

It looks like they're going to be on the other side of things this time around.

A fundamentalist church that protests at soldiers' funerals faces its first lawsuit today from the family of a fallen serviceman.

Members of the Westboro Baptist Church face trial in Baltimore for an invasion-of-privacy lawsuit filed by the father of a fallen Marine from Westminster. Albert Snyder of York, Penn., says the church interrupted his grieving process at the funeral for his son, Lance Cpl. Matthew Snyder, who was killed in Iraq last year. Church members say they were only exercising their free speech rights.

The lawsuit is the first in the nation to be filed against the church by a grieving relative. The church believes war deaths are God's retribution for America's tolerance of homosexuality, and their protests have inspired almost two dozen states to put new limits on protests at funerals.