Tworld News: Week of March 7, 2011

What the tworld needs now is love, tweet love.

All this Qaddafi-related strife in Libya comes as an even bigger surprise for most guys when they first realize that a 'Libya' isn't just another female body part they don't understand.

Huckabee is starting to make Sheen look like a real Gibson. Charles Gibson, respected journalist and host of Good Morning America and World News with Charles Gibson, that is.

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Tags: Apple, Bill of Rights, Catholic Church, Charlie Sheen, Chris Christie, Christianity, Constitution, Fred Phelps, Jewish, Judiciary, LGBT, Libya, Mike Huckabee, Military, Muammar Qaddafi, New Jersey, Pope Benedict XVI, Protesters, Religion, Science & Technology, Supreme Court, Tworld News, Unions, Westboro Baptist Church, Wisconsin

Westboro Bapstist Church Wins Right to Spew Awful Hate-Filled Garbage (Hooray?)

Goddamnit! As if I needed another reason to hate the Westboro Baptist Church, now I have to go and be happy that they won a case protecting their Constitutional right to be obnoxious, hate-filled, media-whoring trolls? Why do you make me support you, Fred Phelps?! Why?!?!

The Supreme Court ruled Wednesday that the First Amendment protects fundamentalist church members who mount attention-getting, anti-gay protests outside military funerals.

The court voted 8-1 in favor of the Westboro Baptist Church of Topeka, Kan. The decision upheld an appeals court ruling that threw out a $5 million judgment to the father of a dead Marine who sued church members after they picketed his son's funeral…

"What Westboro said, in the whole context of how and where it chose to say it, is entitled to 'special protection' under the First Amendment," [Chief Justice John] Roberts wrote, "and that protection cannot be overcome by a jury finding that the picketing was outrageous."

Ugh! It could have gone worse. They could have lost. I think that being happy  they won is better than being sad they lost. In a weird way. Then I'd probably feel compelled to defend them. Then people who feel the same way as me — but are less lazy — would probably feel compelled to go out and protest the Phelps' lost right to protest. And that would get very confusing.

It would be so much nicer to have one set of rules for people we like and another set for people we hate.

I think I'm actually starting to see the appeal of the Tea Party movement.

Tags: Bill of Rights, Christianity, Constitution, Fred Phelps, John Roberts, Military, Protesters, Religion, Westboro Baptist Church

Is Fred Phelps Actually Going to Be Remembered as a Champion of First Amendment Rights?

So, it's looking like Fred Phelps — who, along with his daughter, is testifying before the Supreme Court this week to defend his and the Westboro Baptist Church's constitutional right to be the most horrible fucking collection of people imaginable right in the face of grieving people at funerals — is all set to go down in U.S. history as a hero of free speech alongside pornographer Larry Flynt.

Life, as the French say, is étrange…

At the Huffington Post, Geoffrey Stone predicts that "the Supreme Court will hold that the jury verdict in this case violated the First Amendment."  In an opinion piece for the Wall Street Journal, Eugene Volokh argues that the Court would be wrong to hold otherwise: "judges and juries shouldn’t be free to decide, case by case, that some particular message at a demonstration or on a Web site is so outrageous that it loses constitutional protection."  Jamie Raskin at ACSblog agrees that "we cannot silence the utterly annoying Rev. Phelps except by promoting the values that he despises."

Perhaps unsurprisingly, the editorial boards of several major newspapers urge the Court to hold that the contested speech is protected by the First Amendment. The editorial board of the New York Times contends that "it is in the interest of the nation that strong language about large issues be protected, even when it is hard to do so." The editorial board of the Baltimore Sun agrees, maintaining that "[t]he First Amendment's guarantee of freedom of speech would be meaningless if it didn’t protect the most unpopular and offensive forms of expression." As do the editorial boards of the Washington Post, which contends that "everyone’s rights will be eroded" if "Westboro's vitriol is deemed unworthy of First Amendment protection," and the Los Angeles Times, which emphasizes that the case will "have reverberations in settings far removed from military funerals."

It feels weird to say that I'm thankful for Phelps and WBC and what they're doing, so I think I'll just say "ham sandwich."

Tags: Bill of Rights, Christianity, Constitution, Fred Phelps, Larry Flynt, Porn, Religion, Supreme Court, Westboro Baptist Church

The Koran Burning Rally Is Off (or, More Specifically, It's On But Somewhere Else)

Hey, so that Koran burning thing is off now?

The minister of a Florida church said he has canceled plans to burn copies of the Quran because the leader of a much-opposed plan to build an Islamic Center near ground zero has agreed to move its location. The agreement couldn't be immediately confirmed…

He said instead of his plan to burn the books on Saturday to mark the ninth anniversary of 9/11, he will be flying to New York to speak to Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf about moving the mosque.

Yes, I'm sure that Pastor Terry Jones and Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf were on the horn together all day hashing out a compromise over this. They're all like, Buy! Sell! No mosque! No Koran burning! That's almost certainly what happened.

"We are, of course, now against any other group burning Qurans," Jones said during a news conference. We would right now ask no one to burn Qurans. We are absolutely strong on that. It is not the time to do it."

Oh, of course. Of course. Absolutely strong on that. Can we please get this guy his Nobel Peace Prize now? I mean, why wait?

Anyway, I guess this particular doomsday scenario has run it's course.

Unless…

Tags: Christianity, Feisal Abdul Rauf, Florida, Fred Phelps, Islam, New York City, Religion, Terry Jones, Westboro Baptist Church

In Case You're Wondering Who Wins, It's This Guy Who Is the Guy Who Wins

And it is Fred Phelps and the Westboro Baptist Church are the ones who are losing…

Tags: Christianity, Fred Phelps, Money, Religion, Westboro Baptist Church