Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/10pdf/09-751.pdf
Page Number: 16

12 

SNYDER v. PHELPS 

Opinion of the Court 

said “God Bless America” and “God Loves You,” would not 
have  been  subjected  to  liability.  It  was  what  Westboro 
said that exposed it to tort damages. 

Given that Westboro’s speech was at a public place on a
matter of public concern, that speech is entitled to “special 
protection”  under  the  First  Amendment.  Such  speech
cannot  be  restricted  simply  because  it  is  upsetting  or 
arouses contempt.  “If there is a bedrock principle underly-
ing  the  First  Amendment,  it  is  that  the  government  may 
not  prohibit  the  expression  of  an  idea  simply  because
society  finds  the  idea  itself  offensive  or  disagreeable.” 
Texas v. Johnson, 491 U. S. 397, 414 (1989).  Indeed, “the 
point  of  all  speech  protection  . . .  is  to  shield  just  those 
choices of content that in someone’s eyes are misguided, or 
even hurtful.”  Hurley v. Irish-American Gay, Lesbian and 
Bisexual Group of Boston, Inc., 515 U. S. 557, 574 (1995). 

The jury here was instructed that it could hold Westboro 
liable for intentional infliction of emotional distress based 
on  a  finding  that  Westboro’s  picketing  was  “outrageous.”
“Outrageousness,” however, is a highly malleable standard
with  “an  inherent  subjectiveness  about  it  which  would 
allow  a  jury  to  impose  liability  on  the  basis  of  the  jurors’ 
tastes or views, or perhaps on the basis of their dislike of a 
particular expression.”  Hustler, 485 U. S., at 55 (internal 
quotation marks omitted).  In a case such as this, a jury is 
“unlikely to be neutral with respect to the content of [the]
speech,” posing “a real danger of becoming an instrument
for  the  suppression  of  . . .  ‘vehement,  caustic,  and  some-
times unpleasan[t]’ ” expression.  Bose Corp., 466 U. S., at 
510 (quoting New York Times, 376 U. S., at 270).  Such a 
risk  is  unacceptable;  “in  public  debate  [we]  must  tolerate
insulting, and even outrageous, speech in order to provide
adequate  ‘breathing  space’  to  the  freedoms  protected  by
the First Amendment.”  Boos v. Barry, 485 U. S. 312, 322 
(1988)  (some  internal  quotation  marks  omitted).    What 
Westboro  said,  in  the  whole  context  of  how  and  where  it