Blue Star Moms fight those who would taunt fallen soldiers

Contra Costa Times ^ | 4/24/6 | Scott Marshall

[SmithL]

Nancy Totman knows young soldiers fight for American liberties, including free speech. But when protesters taunt fallen soldiers and their families as agents of the Devil, Totman said it's the grief-stricken survivors that need defending.

"We just cannot let this happen to our military who are out there fighting for the very freedoms to allow this group to go and protest," said Totman, a Danville resident and military and legislative advocate for the Blue Star Moms. "We cannot be silent."

So, aghast at the specter of protesters at funerals holding signs celebrating the deaths of soldiers and rife with profane anti-gay messages, the Blue Star Moms group has helped craft legislation its members hope will rein in such demonstrators. Members will be in Sacramento Tuesday to tout the bill to members of an Assembly committee.

The measure, state AB 2707, would keep protesters 300 feet away from any funeral or memorial service for one hour before, during and an hour after the service, and not just those for fallen soldiers and also would apply to pro-war advocates. It would prohibit the targeting of fallen soldiers at their funerals or of the dead at any funeral or memorial service, and it would apply to protesters with any message, not just anti-war.

Sponsored by state Assemblyman Rick Keene, R-Chico, AB 2707 would set a fine up to $1,000 and/or a jail sentence of up to six months.

Though aimed at any group that would demonstrate to criticize -- or glorify, for that matter -- a fallen soldier, it was spurred by Topeka, Kansas.-based church infamous for its protests against gay people and events.

Members of the Westboro Baptist Church, led by the Rev. Fred Phelps, say soldiers are dying in Iraq and Afghanistan because God is punishing the United States for being tolerant of various sinful behaviors.

That contention doesn't sit well with veterans' families.

"I haven't heard anything as crazy as this since I heard about the Aryan Nations and the Ku Klux Klan," said Mike Conklin, a founder of the Sentinels of Freedom, a military advocacy group that resettles wounded veterans from the war in Iraq. "I think these people are sociopathic, beyond the pale of normal human beings."

Totman, who plans to testify before the state Assembly committee Tuesday, believes AB 2707 would not infringe upon First Amendment guarantees.

"It's narrowly defined," she said. "You cannot picket or protest at a funeral or memorial service that is targeted toward the person being buried." The measure would not preclude demonstrations at any procession to or from a funeral.

To Phelps family members, the bill is an assault on free speech.

"The Supreme Court has spoken to this issue," said Shirley Phelps-Roper, an attorney who is one of the Rev. Phelps' eight daughters. "They may not remove us from sight or sound of our target audience.

"What (AB 2707) has done is targeted our religious message, and they are prohibiting the free exercise of our religion," Phelps-Roper said.

Members of the approximately 75-member church, most of whom are related by blood or marriage to the Rev. Phelps, plan to picket a soldier's funeral in Riverside County Tuesday.

The church is regarded as a hate group by the Montgomery, Ala.-based Southern Poverty Law Center, a respected watchdog non-profit organization that monitors hate groups and sponsors programs advocating tolerance.

The First Amendment protects not only free speech, but also offensive speech. In an analysis of the issue last week, the Washington, D.C.-based LegalTimes noted what the late U.S. Supreme Court Justice William Brennan Jr. wrote in a 1989 flag-burning case, Texas vs. Johnson: "If there is a bedrock principle underlying 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."

Nonetheless, a total of 32 states are considering similar measures, and at least nine have enacted laws, according to LegalTimes.

[CindyDawg]

I understand how they feel but I don't think it's a good idea.

[JPH2006]

I saw Shirley Phelps on Hannity & Colmes last week. Even Alan Colmes thought this woman was a complete jerk! If Ms. Phelps wants to talk about the devil, she should look at herself in the mirror!

[HiTech RedNeck]

bring on the hooligans

[DoughtyOne]

I hope the Phelps are seeing blue stars when the Blue Star moms are done with them.

[SCHROLL]

some one needs to take a paintball gun and inject the paintballs with skunk scent then open up on these clowns the next time they show up.

[LeoWindhorse]

the next time they show up.

EVERY time they show up....no mercy

[peggybac]

Thank God for these guys/gals: http://www.patriotguard.org/Home/tabid/53/Default.aspx

[WestVirginiaRebel]

What Phelps and his fellow lunatic inbreds do is harassment and isn't covered by free speech.

[W. W. SMITH]

government may not prohibit the expression of an idea simply because society finds the idea itself offensive or disagreeable."


But we can!!! It's called a dungaree party.

[Jacquerie]

What Phelps and his fellow lunatic inbreds do is harassment and isn't covered by free speech.

Imagine making your last farewells to a son killed in the line of duty defending this great nation. In the midst of your grief there's a group of psychos telling you that he deserved to die.

It is more than harassment, it is incitement to violence. I hope a few of their heads get knocked.