The Veterans of Foreign Wars has joined the chorus of boos heaped upon the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, which ordered the father of a Marine who died in action to pay court fees for a religious group that he suede after the group protested at his son’s 2006 funeral. Albert Snyder of Westminster, Md., father of Lance Cpl. Matthew Snyder, took legal action after members of the Topeka, Kan.-based Westboro Baptist Church picketed the young Marine’s 2006 funeral. Matthew Snyder died in Anbar province, Iraq, on March 3, 2006. He was attached to I MEF (Marine Expeditionary Force), based at Twentynine Palms, Calif. The church, led by Rev. Fred Phelps, claimed at Snyder’s and numerous other funerals that his death and others’ are God’s way of punishing the U.S. for tolerating homosexuality. Albert Snyder initially won a federal lawsuit against Westboro and Phelps, and was awarded $10.9 million. But the 4th Circuit overturned the lower court’s decision, and ordered Albert Snyder to pay Westboro’s more than $16,000 in court fees. "This is a travesty at best and borders on the obscene," said Thomas J. Tradewell Sr., VFW’s national commander. "Mr. Snyder has already confronted the difficulties of burying his Marine son and then bringing a lawsuit against this group of hate-mongers." The VFW has made a donation to a fund to help pay Snyder’s legal fees. Snyder has since appealed the 4th Circuit’s decision to the U.S. Supreme Court, which has agreed to hear the case.