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Free Speech At What Cost?: Snyder V. Phelps And Speech-Based Tort Liability, Jeffrey Shulman
Free Speech At What Cost?: Snyder V. Phelps And Speech-Based Tort Liability, Jeffrey Shulman
Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works
It is always a hard case when fundamental interests collide, but the Fourth Circuit’s decision in Snyder v. Phelps, 580 F.3d 206 (4th Cir. 2009), cert. granted, 130 S. Ct. 1737 (2010), tilts doctrine too far in the direction of free speech, upsetting the Supreme Court’s careful weighing of interests that takes into account both the need for robust political debate and the need to protect private individuals from personal abuse. Where speech is directed at a private individual, especially one unwilling to hear but unable to escape the speaker’s message, the elements of the emotional distress claim more than …
When Is Religious Speech Outrageous?: Snyder V. Phelps And The Limits Of Religious Advocacy, Jeffrey Shulman
When Is Religious Speech Outrageous?: Snyder V. Phelps And The Limits Of Religious Advocacy, Jeffrey Shulman
Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works
The Constitution affords great protection to religiously motivated speech. Religious liberty would mean little if it did not mean the right to profess and practice as well as to believe. But are there limits beyond which religious speech loses its constitutional shield? Would it violate the First Amendment to subject a religious entity to tort liability if its religious profession causes emotional distress? When is religious speech outrageous?
These are vexing questions, to say the least; but the United States Supreme Court will take them up next term—and it will do so in a factual context that has generated as …