Scumbags have the right to speak…

From the Washington Post:

CHICAGO — At least five Midwestern states are considering legislation to ban protests at funerals in response to demonstrations by the Rev. Fred Phelps and members of his Topeka, Kan.-based Westboro Baptist Church, who have been protesting at funerals of Iraq war casualties because they say the deaths are God’s punishment for U.S. tolerance toward gays.

Though the soldiers were not gay, the protesters say the deaths, as well as Hurricane Katrina, recent mining disasters and other tragedies are God’s signs of displeasure. They also protested at the memorial service for the 12 West Virginia miners who died in the Sago Mine.

“The families weren’t able to bury their loved ones in peace,” said Kansas state Sen. Jean Schodorf, who has proposed legislation. “We felt pretty strongly that we needed to do something about it.”

Kansas already has a law banning demonstrations at funerals, but Schodorf said the existing law is vague and hard to enforce. The proposed bill would keep protesters 300 feet away from any funeral or memorial service and ban demonstrations within one hour before or two hours after a service.

Legislators in Illinois, Indiana, Missouri and Oklahoma are looking at similar bills. Proposed legislation in Indiana would keep protesters 500 feet from funerals, and make a violation a felony punishable by a three-year prison term and a $10,000 fine.

Let’s not kid ourselves here. Anyone who goes to a soldier’s funeral to protest and express their anti-war rhetoric is usually the type of scumbag who takes pleasure in the death of a soldier to begin with. One less cog in the american militaristic imperial regime. Surely you’ve heard it all before. And surely you agree, if you’re any kind of rational human being, that soldiers (and everyone else on earth for that matter) have a right to a dignified and peaceful burial after their death.

That being said, the idea of legislating how much someone or some group is allowed to say at a soldier’s funeral seems counter to the very thing soldiers are fighting for in the first place.

I get angry when I read stories like this, just like you do. I get angry that someone would pick the moment when a family is most grieved to show up and act like assholes, but the last thing I think we need to start doing is legislating behavior that’s otherwise legal. It’s legal to protest outside a funeral. It’s legal to sling nasty words at families and insult the ones that are being buried. It’s also protected under the constitution as long as it’s on public property.

So why the sudden burst of interest in controlling protesters?

Popularity. One Illinois blogger is happy to see this sort of thing happening:

I don’t usually like to stand behind many of the laws created here in Illinois as they are mainly liberal in nature. However, I stand behind this law fully and completely. I was born and raised in Illinois and the longer I live here, the more disgusted I become with the politics of this state. Granted, I understand Chicago is a major city in the U.S. and is driven by democrats. What sickens me is how silent the conservative Republicans are about issues like this. Chicago is also the home of the NAACP and Operation Rainbow Push which is headed by Jesse Jackson. Where are you Conservative Illinoisians?!?!?

And don’t even get me going on the comments section. It would seem that many so-called conservative voices have no problem letting nanny decide what speech is okay as long as they’re apparently on the side they want to “win.”

The government should not be legislating where you’re allowed to exercise your constitutional right to free speech. I’d hazard a guess that most of the people who are supportive of this type of legislation believe that making protesting outside abortion clinics a punishable offense is a great tragedy in our time.

What was that saying about glass houses and stones?

via Camp Katrina

[tags]funerals, soldiers, free speech, aclu[/tags]

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  • http://seekingsanity.blogspot.com Bridget

    Freedom of speech is freedom of speech. I think these assholes that are protesting at funerals need to get a life and maybe invest in some classes on common sense and decency. These are the type of people that give true God-fearing people a bad name.

    If the funeral home is private property, then I believe a law should be made to keep troublemakers away. If it’s public property, then I don’t think anything should be done outside of maybe taking pictures and names of the ignorant assholes who belittle a family’s grief and loss and then post them for all the world to see. Maybe we can even find their addresses and protest on the streets in front of their homes – down with ignorance!

  • http://www.insignificantthoughts.com Vinny

    If it’s private property, the law already covers it and people are more than welcome to throw anyone they want out of a funeral home.

    We don’t need new laws for stuff like this.

  • http://seek-truth.com/ Chet

    Completely agree with you the private property side – the property owners should govern conduct on their own land.

    Concerning public cemetaries and such – if any laws are to be made regarding what can or can’t be done as far as protests go it should be local or city ordinance – not State or God forbid, Federal law. Local municipalities have more tools to legislate those types of public orders without violating 1st Amendment rights.

    The State of Illinois, as usual of late, is overstepping its bounds if it decides to go through with this.

  • justis

    Let’s not kid ourselves here. Anyone who goes to a soldier’s funeral to protest and express their anti-war rhetoric is usually the type of scumbag who takes pleasure in the death of a soldier to begin with. One less cog in the american militaristic imperial regime.

    I agree with your point here – but your preface totally and blatantly misses the mark. As you well know, Phelps is not an anti-war protestor, he’s an anti-gay protestor. You’re subtly villifying the anti-war movement with tactics they aren’t using. This is the same assholery Sean Hannity used last summer when Phelps and his gang of retards protested another military funeral for the same reasons. He blamed the protest on anti-war activists, when a group of fundamentalist Christians were actually responsible. But, of course, we all know that Republicans like Hannity can’t criticize their “base”. Please don’t fall into that trap.

    Anyway, regardless of who is doing this, it makes me sick. It makes me even sicker that I have to defend their right to do this, but it is protected speech, and should remain so, as long as they do not block or hinder access to and from the event, or assault participants and bystanders.

    Of course, there’s nothing to stop supporters from organizing en masse as well. But unfortunately, it’s easier to get people out for something negative than for something positive. The anti-choice militants have employed this truth to great effect for years.

  • http://www.insignificantthoughts.com Vinny

    The anti-choice militants have employed this truth to great effect for years.

    Talk about villifying.

  • http://4rwws.blogspot.com Raging_Dave

    “anti-choice” Wow, what a phrase to use. Perhaps I just don’t like the thought of a small human being cut up like a roast and then sucked out of it’s mother’s womb with a modified vacume cleaner.

    You don’t want to have kids? Try this for once: Use a condom. Or an IUD. Or the pill. Or the Depo shot. Or Norplant. Or the new patch. Or a anti-contraception sponge. Or that new hormone ring that just came out. Or a spermacide. Face the facts; abortion to save the life of a mother or due to rape or incest account for approximately 1% of all abortions today. The other 99% are because by and large people are too stupid or too lazy to use one of the FOURTEEN DIFFERENT TYPES OF CONTRACEPTION currently available on the market. People being lazy and stupid is no excuse to wipe out a human life, no matter what anyone tries to say. If people were actually responsible instead of just “doing what feels good”, the number abortions in this country would drop sharply.

    I don’t object to abortion as a means to save a woman’s life. And as much as it pains me to say it, I don’t think that a rape or incest victim should be forced to carry the result of that action to term, even though you would still be killing an innocent child. But people want to use abortion as a form of birth control, and I find that repulsive. You had your chance to use birth control, and you obviously didn’t. So now you want to kill a child because it might be inconvienent.

    And yet the same people who scream about a woman’s choice still think that capital punishment is wrong. Explain that to me, will you?

    As for Fred Phelps, he’s a rotten canker sore on the anus of humanity. He’s been playing the same old schtick for decades. In fact, it’s one of his main sources of income for his so-called “church”. Do something so offensive that someone else reacts physically, and then sue the pants off of whoever punched him. He doesn’t just do this at funerals. I was unfortunate enough to pass by one of his “lectures” at Kansas State University (If you can call standing on the auditorium steps and screaming mangled Bible verses a “lecture”) and he’s just a vile example of humanity. I guarantee that when Phelps dies, he ain’t going to heaven.

    I wonder what would happen if counter-protesters showed up at a Phelps protest with signs that read “Fred Phelps and his family practice incest”, or “Phelps is secretly a homosexual”. Turnabout is fair play, after all.

    Or maybe just a simple sign. “God hates Fred Phelps”. I think that would do it.

  • justis

    Talk about villifying.

    I did that intentionally to make a follow-up point. I have a feeling that your post was actually about abortion all along. That you completely ignored the point I made about your mischaracterization of the protestors, but seized on one sentence calling anti-abortion advocates “anti-choice” shows exactly what’s going on here.

    People on the right who oppose abortion and support protests in front of clinics where abortions are performed, in order to remain consistent, must support protests at military funerals. If Phelps is barred from protesting outside military funerals, then anti-abortion activists may be the next target. And since the American right has a single-minded domestic agenda (the reversal of Roe v. Wade), anything that might interrupt the momentum is unacceptable.

  • http://www.insignificantthoughts.com Vinny

    Hey J, go back and re-read the part about abortion and come back when you understand it.

    My point is that the right-wing nutbags who think this legislation is a good idea probably think it’s bad when abortion clinics are protected. It’s called irony, mate, and your extension of where it goes beyond my point is nowhere near the intention of the piece, although you’re welcome to make those claims if you want. My point ends at the inconsistency.

    It was to point out the hypocrisy of those who believe in dumb-assed legislation like this.

    Woops. Egg on your face, huh?

    As for the “anti-war protestors” part, I read it and didn’t feel it merited a reply. You were right. In this story it was Phelps. It isn’t always Phelps and his assbags, although admittedly it often is.

    This has nothing to do with a single-minded agenda, or momentum, or any other cockamamey crap you came up with, although you’re welcome to engage in your wild flights of logical fantasy if that’s what gets your juices flowing.

  • justis

    Alright, Vinny, so I took your advice about rereading your post… I’ll eat crow on my second comment. You’re absolutely right – I misread the point you were making in the last paragraph. On first read, it looked to me that you were making the opposite point. Entirely my bad – sorry for misinterpreting you.

  • Dave

    ” … protesting at funerals of Iraq war casualties because they say the deaths are God’s punishment for U.S. tolerance toward gays … ”

    Military recruiters have been kicked out of San Fransisco and have been attempts to get kicked out of numerous Universities because of military intolerance toward gays.

    Damned if you do, damned if you don’t.

  • http://seekingsanity.blogspot.com/ Bridget

    Freedom of speech is freedom of speech. I think these assholes that are protesting at funerals need to get a life and maybe invest in some classes on common sense and decency. These are the type of people that give true God-fearing people a bad name.

    If the funeral home is private property, then I believe a law should be made to keep troublemakers away. If it’s public property, then I don’t think anything should be done outside of maybe taking pictures and names of the ignorant assholes who belittle a family’s grief and loss and then post them for all the world to see. Maybe we can even find their addresses and protest on the streets in front of their homes – down with ignorance!

  • http://www.insignificantthoughts.com/ Vinny

    If it’s private property, the law already covers it and people are more than welcome to throw anyone they want out of a funeral home.

    We don’t need new laws for stuff like this.

  • http://seek-truth.com/ Chet

    Completely agree with you the private property side – the property owners should govern conduct on their own land.

    Concerning public cemetaries and such – if any laws are to be made regarding what can or can’t be done as far as protests go it should be local or city ordinance – not State or God forbid, Federal law. Local municipalities have more tools to legislate those types of public orders without violating 1st Amendment rights.

    The State of Illinois, as usual of late, is overstepping its bounds if it decides to go through with this.

  • justis

    Let’s not kid ourselves here. Anyone who goes to a soldier’s funeral to protest and express their anti-war rhetoric is usually the type of scumbag who takes pleasure in the death of a soldier to begin with. One less cog in the american militaristic imperial regime.

    I agree with your point here – but your preface totally and blatantly misses the mark. As you well know, Phelps is not an anti-war protestor, he’s an anti-gay protestor. You’re subtly villifying the anti-war movement with tactics they aren’t using. This is the same assholery Sean Hannity used last summer when Phelps and his gang of retards protested another military funeral for the same reasons. He blamed the protest on anti-war activists, when a group of fundamentalist Christians were actually responsible. But, of course, we all know that Republicans like Hannity can’t criticize their “base”. Please don’t fall into that trap.

    Anyway, regardless of who is doing this, it makes me sick. It makes me even sicker that I have to defend their right to do this, but it is protected speech, and should remain so, as long as they do not block or hinder access to and from the event, or assault participants and bystanders.

    Of course, there’s nothing to stop supporters from organizing en masse as well. But unfortunately, it’s easier to get people out for something negative than for something positive. The anti-choice militants have employed this truth to great effect for years.

  • http://www.insignificantthoughts.com/ Vinny

    The anti-choice militants have employed this truth to great effect for years.

    Talk about villifying.

  • http://4rwws.blogspot.com/ Raging_Dave

    “anti-choice” Wow, what a phrase to use. Perhaps I just don’t like the thought of a small human being cut up like a roast and then sucked out of it’s mother’s womb with a modified vacume cleaner.

    You don’t want to have kids? Try this for once: Use a condom. Or an IUD. Or the pill. Or the Depo shot. Or Norplant. Or the new patch. Or a anti-contraception sponge. Or that new hormone ring that just came out. Or a spermacide. Face the facts; abortion to save the life of a mother or due to rape or incest account for approximately 1% of all abortions today. The other 99% are because by and large people are too stupid or too lazy to use one of the FOURTEEN DIFFERENT TYPES OF CONTRACEPTION currently available on the market. People being lazy and stupid is no excuse to wipe out a human life, no matter what anyone tries to say. If people were actually responsible instead of just “doing what feels good”, the number abortions in this country would drop sharply.

    I don’t object to abortion as a means to save a woman’s life. And as much as it pains me to say it, I don’t think that a rape or incest victim should be forced to carry the result of that action to term, even though you would still be killing an innocent child. But people want to use abortion as a form of birth control, and I find that repulsive. You had your chance to use birth control, and you obviously didn’t. So now you want to kill a child because it might be inconvienent.

    And yet the same people who scream about a woman’s choice still think that capital punishment is wrong. Explain that to me, will you?

    As for Fred Phelps, he’s a rotten canker sore on the anus of humanity. He’s been playing the same old schtick for decades. In fact, it’s one of his main sources of income for his so-called “church”. Do something so offensive that someone else reacts physically, and then sue the pants off of whoever punched him. He doesn’t just do this at funerals. I was unfortunate enough to pass by one of his “lectures” at Kansas State University (If you can call standing on the auditorium steps and screaming mangled Bible verses a “lecture”) and he’s just a vile example of humanity. I guarantee that when Phelps dies, he ain’t going to heaven.

    I wonder what would happen if counter-protesters showed up at a Phelps protest with signs that read “Fred Phelps and his family practice incest”, or “Phelps is secretly a homosexual”. Turnabout is fair play, after all.

    Or maybe just a simple sign. “God hates Fred Phelps”. I think that would do it.

  • justis

    Talk about villifying.

    I did that intentionally to make a follow-up point. I have a feeling that your post was actually about abortion all along. That you completely ignored the point I made about your mischaracterization of the protestors, but seized on one sentence calling anti-abortion advocates “anti-choice” shows exactly what’s going on here.

    People on the right who oppose abortion and support protests in front of clinics where abortions are performed, in order to remain consistent, must support protests at military funerals. If Phelps is barred from protesting outside military funerals, then anti-abortion activists may be the next target. And since the American right has a single-minded domestic agenda (the reversal of Roe v. Wade), anything that might interrupt the momentum is unacceptable.

  • http://www.insignificantthoughts.com/ Vinny

    Hey J, go back and re-read the part about abortion and come back when you understand it.

    My point is that the right-wing nutbags who think this legislation is a good idea probably think it’s bad when abortion clinics are protected. It’s called irony, mate, and your extension of where it goes beyond my point is nowhere near the intention of the piece, although you’re welcome to make those claims if you want. My point ends at the inconsistency.

    It was to point out the hypocrisy of those who believe in dumb-assed legislation like this.

    Woops. Egg on your face, huh?

    As for the “anti-war protestors” part, I read it and didn’t feel it merited a reply. You were right. In this story it was Phelps. It isn’t always Phelps and his assbags, although admittedly it often is.

    This has nothing to do with a single-minded agenda, or momentum, or any other cockamamey crap you came up with, although you’re welcome to engage in your wild flights of logical fantasy if that’s what gets your juices flowing.

  • justis

    Alright, Vinny, so I took your advice about rereading your post… I’ll eat crow on my second comment. You’re absolutely right – I misread the point you were making in the last paragraph. On first read, it looked to me that you were making the opposite point. Entirely my bad – sorry for misinterpreting you.

  • Dave

    ” … protesting at funerals of Iraq war casualties because they say the deaths are God’s punishment for U.S. tolerance toward gays … ”

    Military recruiters have been kicked out of San Fransisco and have been attempts to get kicked out of numerous Universities because of military intolerance toward gays.

    Damned if you do, damned if you don’t.