A member of the Indiana legislature has introduced legislation to limit radical groups in their funeral protests, especially at the funerals of service members killed in the line of duty. The article raises some interesting points concerning First Ammendment rights.

Many of us have served in the military to help insure citizens of the USA have the right to free speech. However, my personal belief is that there is a special place in hell for people such as this group and the way they "share" their beliefs.

Not advocating one way or another for the current state of affairs in the Mid-East. And, I support the right of free speech no matter how much I may disagree. However, what these people are doing is just plain wrong and inflicting additional pain upon families already suffering a terrible loss. IMHO.

Okay, someone explain to me what in the Sam Hill has support of gays got to do with soldiers being killed in Iraq???????????
I don't think there is enough elastic in the world to make the stretch between those two points!!

I have to agree with you Dave, I'm for for Free Speech in most cases, but to protest at a funeral is just wrong. People should be allowed their privacy to grieve.

Unfortunately, there is a nut born every minute, and they all seem to find each other!

RESPECT, what happened to it. Why not protest at a fake funeral? What not at a grave site hours after the service? I support free speech more than most, HOWEVER, the 1st amendment does state,
"...the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances." If you come to my family funeral to protest anything, it will not be a "peaceably assemble".

If seems to me, if you are not invited to the funeral you should have to at wait outside the cemetary. COMMON SENSE and RESPECT, it needs to be practiced by all protest groups.

... but RESPECT is getting lost very fast ... Huge numbers of people grow up never having been taught how to respect anyone or anything.
They are not shown by excample or taught with words, where the boundries are. So how should they know how to repsect funerals and grief and such like?
And the same goes for compassion...

The same thing as the increase in hurricanes being because God is p****d; what, is he only p****d at the people on the coasts??


Some people have to blame everything on something they don't believe in...they were Buddhists monks in another life and now have ALL the answers!

Steve :rolleyes:

Well said, Margret and Eric. I am the first one to stand up for our First Amendment Rights, but we accomplish a lot more when we communicate, negotiate, etc. - peaceably. This group, however, was looking for a cause and they found one - manufactured one, might be a better way to say it. It's a much misguided one - and in the name of God?! Radical groups like this always think God is on their side and against the rest of us - we're all sinners and doomed for all eternity. Why would God pick on the most downtrodden and poor people on earth (hurricanes, tsunamis, etc.)? "My" God is one of love, compassion, forgiveness.

I'm not going to post a whole lot about this. I can't without getting extremely derogatory - and this isn't the place for that. Sometimes ignorance is bliss. In this case, it's just plain sad.

Hear Hear Grace. My God is my friend and all for compasion respect and looking out for each other.

Trouble is... he has given us choices.
And you know what it is like... it is too easy to choose wrong!

That Westboro bunch out of Kansas is a particulary obnoxious nutcase group. Thay "protested" here against Focus on the Family, including stomping on flags. They seem to have Hitlerian fobias against gays and anyone who doesn't support their total extermination. The day they begin to actually hurt people will be their end. Counterprotesters here let them know they weren't welcome and the Springs is not exactly known for homosexual endorsement.

As for your gayness, I don't want to know just as what ever your sexual prefernce is, I don't want to know. If what ever it is is linchpin of your public personna, you've the big problem. Being gay is above all else in you life?

As for military funerals as with any funeral, it is no place for a protest of any kind. Just because someone died to protect your right to protest doesn't mean you have to exercise it to prove them right. If anyone should show up to protest at my funeral, go open the coffin, remove the baseball bat and use it appropriately. I truly hope to be buried in Arlington and expect there will be no problems.

Manners and grace. A military coworker of my wife left yesterday to move to Georgia. Her husband, a pilot, has been there since the summer and has moved into their new home with his daughter of 6 years. The cocky little girl is haveing to get use to Southern manners, yes sir, no sir, etc., especially in school. The parents find thid refreshing. But, they could have taught her themselves if thay had not been generations removed from what was once a national habit, raising kids with manners instead of letting them "find themselves." Somewhere back in the 50s and 60s we lost a valuable part of our national personality. I blame it on Dr. Spock and television. The South and parts of the Midwest, rural America, seem to reservoirs of sanity.

I'd love to see them try their crap at Arlington. Might take care of the whole lot of them right then and there.

I remember many years ago (probably late 60's) being at a movie at the base theater on Fort Myer. (For those not familiar with the area, Fort Myer is next to Arlington National Cemetery. In fact, they took away part of the post to make the cemetery larger.) Anyways, as is policy, prior to the start of the movie the National Anthem is played. Up in front of us some clown did't rise from his seat to show the proper respect. Along came a couple of Old Guard soldiers who helped the under-educated person quickly rise to his feet for the anthem. Ahhhh, the good old days........

Dave,

I wish I could have seen the actions of the Old Guard. I would have helped them out with great enthusiasm.

bobo

That would have been some sight!! Wish I could have seen that as well.

... in other words: They are SCARED of anything or anyone who is differnt from what they know !!

Similarly, last 4th of July parade, my wife and I (both retired USAF) were constanly standing up and sitting down. A lady(?) behind us asked to stop as it obstructed her view. I told we would only do it every time the flag passed if it was OK with her. She moved her seat.

Margret, I think that many people never figured out what FDR meant when he said, "We have nothing to fear but fear itself." Fear has been the cause of some of the world's bloodiest history.

Yes and the worst fear has to do with not being able to see anything much past your own front door. So you get real scared of anything unknown.

The best gift we can give our children is to teach them to be brave and interested in anything new and different. Make them curious and teach them HOW to explore new things.

Sadly, many people today just absolutely hate current and past members of the military. They see them only as symbols and not human beings and could care less about their families and their feelings as well. A coin forum that I frequent has had MANY heated debates over this very issue. I have had a few younger members there actually tell me that military members and veterans should all be rounded up and shot. They absolutely refused to believe that the military has had anything to do with our freedom and our way of life would just improve without it. I received threats, was called every name in the book, and eventually was forced to change my username to avoid the "hate" replies and mail when they found out I was a veteran. I have had several burials in my cemetery from the war in Iraq and I can guarantee you that there WERE NO protestors around those families!!!

At any time, about 1,500,000 Americans (and resident aliens) are in the US military. Most are young average people; not extremely wealthy, not deathly poor; not raving geniuses, not raving lunatics; mostly white with sizeable hispanic and black minorities, and a smaller Asian group, just like the general population. Thay cover the backside of the other 298,500,000 Americans, most of whom pay them little or no attention and could care less about their efforts.

They concede their Constitution rights upon entering the services: freedom of speech restricted, right to free movement restricted, not secure in their property (vehicle and base housing can be searched without warrents or probable cause), right to bear (privately owned) arms restricted on base, and cannot sue for grievances and damages (e.g., medical malpractice) connected with service.

They are called upon to bring freedom and democracy to people who've never heard of it. Wesend them to places many of them can't find on a map. They learn geography and what the Constitution stands for, since they swear to protect and defend it with their lives. They leave home and family and live in a tent for a year, come home for months and go back to the tent for another year. They watch friends die. When the times comes to leave the service, they sign up to do it all again.

No one is more aware of the qualities of our national leadership. Trust in the Commander in Chief is paramount. The chain of command MUST look out for the bottom before the top. Politicians and others say they support the troops but not the mission (war, "peace" keeping, etc). If the CINC is trusted, he is considered one of the troops by the troops.

For once we're trying to stop threats from developing into deadly actions while still small. (If only we had invaded Germany when it started torturing and killing it's own people.)

I could go on, but remember one thing, when the soldier, sailor, airman or marine, retires, resigns, quits, dies, whatever from the service, he is "relieved from active duty," he is never relieved from his oath to protect and defend.

The least we can do is give him a respectful funeral.

Funeral protest bill sent to Doyle

Wisconsin lawmakers moved swiftly Thursday to become the first state to ban protests at funerals in an effort aimed at stopping members of a Kansas church who have disrupted military services.

The state Senate voted 33-0 Thursday to criminalize protests that take place within 500 feet of a funeral one hour before or after the service.

In a surprise move hours later, the Assembly added the measure to its calendar and quickly approved the bill 92-3. Gov. Jim Doyle, who in October attended a funeral disrupted by protests led by Westboro Baptist Church, told The Associated Press he would sign the legislation soon.

Doyle's signature would make Wisconsin the first to enact such a law but 14 others are considering similar bills in response to the church's protests at dozens of military funerals across the country, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures.

Wisconsin's law would apply to protests within 500 feet of the entrance of a memorial service or a funeral and punish first-time violators with up to $10,000 fines and nine months in jail. A second offense could bring up to a 3-year jail term.

"It's silly that we would have to legislate common sense and common decency," said Sen. Jeff Plale, D-South Milwaukee. "But these people who come here to protest at funerals: they are not common, they are not sensible and they certainly aren't decent."

Some lawmakers said they were concerned that the bill was unconstitutional.

"I think we probably have crossed over the line of First Amendment protections," said Sen. Fred Risser, D-Madison, who nonetheless voted for the bill. "I expect that if it's challenged, we'll find it's gone too far."

The Topeka-based church, led by the Rev. Fred Phelps, believes soldiers' deaths are God's vengeance for the United States' tolerance of homosexuality. It often pickets with signs such as: "Thank God for IEDs," referring to roadside bombs that have killed many soldiers in Iraq.

Shirley Phelps-Roper, a lawyer who is a member of the church, said similar bills had passed legislative bodies in three other states but none had been signed into law. She said lawmakers were taking away the constitutional rights that soldiers in Iraq were fighting to protect.

"They say we picket their graves. They have stomped on their graves," she said, vowing to challenge in court any measure signed into law.

Doyle said the protest he witnessed was grotesque behavior "at a moment where you want the family and the community to be able to show their incredibly profound respect."

A former state attorney general, Doyle said he would be comfortable defending the law's constitutionality in court.

"I think people have been very careful here to make sure that what you are doing is protecting against disruption at a very solemn occasion," he said.

Rep. Frank Boyle, D-Superior, called the church members "crazy wackos" but agreed with Phelps-Roper that lawmakers were trouncing on the freedoms that soldiers were fighting for. Today it's the church; tomorrow it could be abortion or environmental protesters, he said.

"Be careful when you wedge away at the constitutional and the personal freedom we have in this country," he said in a thunderous speech on the Assembly floor.

But Sen. Ron Brown, R-Eau Claire, one of the bill's sponsors, said the restrictions had been crafted with input from constitutional experts and are "reasonable considering the privacy of the individuals who are grieving so deeply."
http://www.madison.com/tct/news/stories/index.php?ntid=71335