Westboro Baptists and Animal Rights Terrorism.
In a historic 8-to-1 decision, the United States Supreme Court ruled that protests at soldier’s funerals by the Westboro Baptist Church were within the legal rights of free speech.
This decision is even more distressing when you think that activists supporting the Stop Huntingdon Animal Cruelty (SHAC) campaign were placed in federal prison in 2006 because the same court ruled that opposition to animal testing labs was not protected speech.
The seven SHAC activists participated in and promoted legal demonstrations against the world’s largest animal testing corporation, Huntingdon Life Science. Because unknown people participated in minor acts of vandalism against the company, the SHAC 7 were charged with “inciting terrorism.”
The activists were charged under America’s new Animal Enterprise Terrorism Act which allows the government to charge animal rights activists as terrorists if they “interfere with the operation of an animal enterprise” (i.e. any corporation that exploits animals for profit).
On March 7th of 2011, the US Supreme Court denied the SHAC 7’s motion for appeal. Instead of supporting what should be free and legal speech, the court chose to back the corporations who seek to exploit the suffering of animals for profit.
With their support of the Westboro Baptist church, the court agrees to defend the most disgusting bigotry and hate speech we’ve ever seen. One has to wonder, if the Westboro church was protesting Huntingdon Life Sciences with signs that read “God Hates Vivisectors,” would they be in Federal prison now too?
