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AJC.com > Legislature > Blog > Archives > 2006 > March > 24 > Entry
DEL.ICIO.USHouse votes to ban demonstrations at funerals
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
House members voted Friday to ban demonstrations at funerals, declaring that the feelings of grieving families of slain soldiers and other dead should override the free-speech rights of protesters.
The bill, which passed 144-15, bans “disorderly or disruptive” conduct at funerals. It was filed in response to anti-gay demonstrations that members of a Kansas church have staged at funerals across the country, including those of civil rights champion Coretta Scott King and Iraqi War soldiers.
Supporters and opponents of the bill denounced the protests by the Rev. Fred Phelps and his fundamentalist congregation in Kansas as unseemly. But some House members insisted that the protesters’ First Amendment right to freedom of speech should prevail.
The bill prohibits offensive signs and abusive language within 500 feet of a funeral service, something the ACLU has said would likely be ruled unconstitutional.
Rep. Ron Forster (R-Ringgold), who brought Senate Bill 606 to the floor of the House, said the protests are “so vile and repugnant” that 15 states have or are in the process of passing similar legislation.
“Can you imagine a group coming [to the funeral] of your military father, son, mother or daughter … yelling things?” Forster asked. “All we’re saying is, during these tender moments, these type of demonstrations are not allowed.”
Rep. Ed Rynders (R-Albany) said demonstrating for political purposes at a funeral is in “incredibly bad taste.
“I would never do that. My momma didn’t raise me that way,” Rynders said.
But he said he said the constitutional issue of freedom of speech might be a bigger issue than placing restrictions on “people who go out there and behave like we wouldn’t behave.
“I would ask you to seriously think about whether it’s a bigger danger [than] squashing and stepping on their rights to do that,” Rynders said. Rep. Douglas Dean (D-Atlanta) said: “Next year, we’ll be down hear passing laws against speaking at funerals.”
Rep. Chuck Sims (R-Ambrose), a funeral director, told House members that a funeral “is not a place to issue some kind of statement.
“A funeral is a time when we all should reflect on someone’s life and their intimate relationships,” Sims said.
Phelps and some members of the Westboro Baptist Church in Topeka, Kansas have picketed at the funerals of soldiers killed in Iraq, claiming the deaths were God’s reaction to the United States’ tolerance for homosexuality.
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By j.t.
March 24, 2006 04:36 PM | Link to this
Of course they should be banned. However, it hasn’t ever had to be done until now.
This poor white trash hillbilly attorney - Fred Phelps - and his incestuous clan who have only one gripe: homosexuality.
For all the Bible’s teachings, the only message their poor ignorant minds could grasp is apparently something they fear within their own persons: homosexuality.
Hopefully, they will get their come-up-ance and they will stop. Until then, it looks like a ban is necessary.