Jury Verdict Against Phelps’ Church

Ken AshfordGodstuff, Sex/Morality/Family ValuesLeave a Comment

Finally.  This guy is a creep:

A jury on Wednesday ordered an anti-gay Kansas church to pay $10.9 million in damages to relatives of a U.S. Marine who died in Iraq after church members cheered his death at his funeral.

Church members said Marine Lance Cpl. Matthew Snyder’s death was God’s punishment of America for tolerating homosexuality, and they attended his 2006 funeral in Maryland with signs saying "You’re going to hell" and "God hates you."

The federal jury determined the Westboro Baptist Church, based in Topeka, and three of its principals invaded the privacy of the dead man’s family and inflicted emotional distress.

Albert Snyder, the Marine’s father, testified that his son was not gay, but the church targeted the military as a symbol of America’s tolerance of gays. Matthew Snyder died in combat in Iraq in March 2006.

The jury awarded Snyder’s family $2.9 million in compensatory damages plus $8 million in punitive damages in the first civil suit against the church, which has demonstrated at some 300 military funerals the past two years.

The lawsuit said church Web sites vilified U.S. soldiers, accusing them of being indoctrinated by "fag propaganda."

Phelps will appeal:

It will take the 4th Circuit Court of Appeals a few minutes to reverse this silly thing," Phelps said.

No, it won’t.

Here’s the cry-me-a-river statement of the year:

Defense attorney Jonathan Katz urged jurors not to award punitive damages because the $2.9 million in compensatory damages was already three times the defendants’ net worth.

"It’s enough already to bankrupt them and financially destroy them," Katz said.

Boo-freakin’ hoo.  Here’s the freak on CNN: