Posted on 11/11/2005 2:01:35 PM PST by Graybeard58
JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. - Two legislators proposed a law Friday making it a crime to protest at a funeral, in response to an anti-gay group that has protested at military funerals in Missouri and around the country.
But some First Amendment experts said the idea could be unconstitutional.
Republican Sen. Charlie Shields and Democratic Rep. Martin Rucker, both of St. Joseph, promoted the idea on Veterans Day, after a protest during the August funeral services of Spc. Edward Myers, a St. Joseph soldier killed in Iraq.
"Quite honestly I'd never heard of anybody ever protesting a funeral. It was really pretty disgusting," Shields said.
Members of Westboro Baptist Church of Topeka, Kan., protested and waved anti-military signs. Church leader the Rev. Fred Phelps contends American soldiers are being killed in Iraq as vengeance from God for protecting a country that harbors gays. The church is not affiliated with a larger denomination and is made up mostly of Phelps' children, grandchildren and in-laws.
Shields said the proposal, which is to be filed Dec. 1 for consideration during next year's legislative session, is modeled after a Kansas law. Similar ideas have been proposed in other states.
The measure would bar protests at or near a funeral from an hour before to an hour after the service. Shields said the time restrictions should allow the law to withstand a legal challenge.
But Ronald Collins, a scholar with the First Amendment Center in Arlington, Va., said such a law likely would infringe on constitutional free-speech rights. He said it would be tough to apply it in a content-neutral way without restricting those who wish to show their respect for the dead.
"Obviously reasonable and content-neutral time, place, manner restrictions might be permissible," he said. "But at the end of the day, this sort of thing is best left to the judgment of decent-minded people and is not an area that should be legislated in."
This idiot is NOT Baptist.
They could address it by modifying the criminal laws. Create an affirmative defense to a homicide charge if the killer is a relative of the person being buried, and the victim is protesting and disrupting the services.
A codification of the old common law two part test.
1) Did he need killing?
2) Did the right person kill him?
They are talking about military funerals. This Ahole is disrupting funerals of our troops killed in Iraq.
WOnder what these experts thought about McCain-Feingold.
I heard on the Joe soucheray show that this group was protesting at a soldiers funeral in hudson minnesota today
This outfit is so far out that I don't know that if you could affiliate them with anything that ever existed before Fred Phelps decided that he was going to have himself a church. That should be, "church."
This outfit can't be for real, unless one includes as "real" the rotted pulp that fills Phelps' head and heart.
I know there have been efforts in other states to confront Phelps' protests by legislation. If they can't do that, they can at least allow families of dead solidiers to employ some big ugly men with Louisville Sluggers to "dialogue" with these "Baptists."
You might want to re-read the article; it's not homosexuals who are doing the protesting...it's people who hate "fags".
Those gas leaks can be pesky - although it's a much better excuse for a typo than what I usually come up with. I don't agree with you on "fag" (unless you mean a cigarette), but you're spot-on when it comes to how to treat funeral-protestors...
My first thought was to call him an idiot but my second thought is to pity him because he's so obviously disturbed. Jesus came to save us from all of our sins -- not just the sins that we find personally repulsive.
Yep, the whole damn bunch needs their kneecaps adjusted. That would not interfere with their ability to speak.
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