CINCINNATI, Aug. 22, 2008
Court Backs Ohio Ban On Funeral Pickets
Upholds Blocking Protests Within 300 Feet Of Burial Service, A Loss For Anti-Gay Church
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Westboro Baptist church member Gabriel Phelps-Roper, 10, and his sister Grace Phelps-Roper, 13, both of Topeka, Kan., protest at the funeral of Marine Lance Cpl. Matthew A. Snyder, who was killed in Iraq, on March 10, 2006. "Thank God for IEDs," read one sign. (AP)
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It's a loss for the Topeka, Kan.-based Westboro Baptist Church, whose members are often seen at military funerals claiming the deaths of U.S. troops overseas are part of God's punishment for the nation's tolerance of homosexuality.
Friday's ruling by the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals upheld a portion of a lower court's ruling on the law, which calls for a 300-foot buffer zone around a cemetery, funeral home, or place of worship.
In 2006 the Ohio legislature amended a state law prohibiting protests at funerals which had been on the books since 1957, establishing the 300-foot zone and expanding the definition of protests to include "any action that is disruptive or undertaken to disrupt or disturb a funeral or burial service or a funeral procession."
Plaintiff Shirley L. Phelps-Roper, an attorney and daughter of church leader Fred Phelps, had claimed that the Ohio restrictions contradicted the First Amendment, being overbroad regulations of speech as well as a criminalization of speech.
She also said the Ohio law effectively denied members the opportunity to preach the message of their church - that God is punishing America for the sin of homosexuality by killing Americans, from soldiers and mine workers to Amish school girls.
Against arguments that people cannot avoid the intrusions upon their privacy imposed by such protests without sacrificing their right to mourn, Phelps-Rogers had responded that attendance at a burial service is voluntary and that attendees could merely "avert their eyes."
The U.S. District Court had split in its original decision, finding part of the Funeral Procession Provision to be unconstitutionally overbroad.
However, the appeals court held that attendance at a funeral or burial service cannot be dismissed as nothing more than a “voluntary” activity.
"As Respondents assert, 'deep tradition and social obligation, quite apart from the emotional support the grieving require,' compel individuals to attend a funeral or burial service. Furthermore, if individuals 'want to take part in an event memorializing the deceased, they must go to the place designated for the memorial event.' Friends and family of the deceased should not be expected to opt-out from attending their loved one’s funeral or burial service. …The appeals court also said there was no merit to Phelps-Rogers' contention that the Funeral Protest Provision leaves church members without ample alternative channels of communication: "As Respondents argue, Phelps-Roper has an 'international audience with her website, where her message is seen by millions' and she has appeared on national radio and television."
"Accordingly, we agree with the district court’s conclusion that Ohio has an important interest in the protection of funeral attendees, because a deceased’s survivors have a privacy right 'in the character and memory of the deceased.'"
Last October, a federal jury returned a verdict against the Westboro Baptist Church, awarding nearly $11 million in compensatory and punitive damages to the father of a Marine killed in Iraq after church members demonstrated at the March 2006 funeral.
As Lance Cpl. Matthew Snyder was laid to rest, church members carried signs reading "Thank God for dead soldiers" and "God hates fags." There were also posters depicting stick figures engaged in acts of sodomy. The church also posted material about Lance Cpl. Snyder, attacking his famiily and their Catholicism, on their Web site, godhatesamerica.com.
Jurors were instructed that, to find for the plaintiff, they would have to find the church's conduct an extreme, outrageous, and intentional infliction of emotional distress "highly offensive to a reasonable person.
Attorney Craig Trebilcock had urged jurors to determine an amount "that says, 'Don't do this in Maryland again. Do not bring your circus of hate to Maryland again.'"
In February a federal district judge reduced the jury's award to $5 million.
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Is anyone else confused about the connection between these two issues? What the heck do dead soldiers have to do with "god" punishing us for tolerance of homosexuality??
Posted by beehive21
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If anyone disrupts YOUR Funeral? Shoot em?
Yeah if a dead guy shoots ya what are they gonna do about it. :-)
That Phelps and his gang of hoodlums is focused on *** is merely a happenstance. Homos#xu@lity isn''t the issue; hatred is. These folks get a rush out of these negative emotions and hostility in exactly the same way a drug addict gets his from whatever illicit substance he likes to overdo. The same pleasure centers that light up when alcholics drink or compulsive gamblers throw down their money light up the WBC congregation when they mount their hobby horses and spew their venom at funerals and memorials.
The important take-away I got from Bell''s articles was the hatred itself, rather than its focus. If ****()exuality disappeared today, the hatred that Phelps and his deviants generate would continue to fester. It might be directed at illegals, Blacks, liberals, conservatives, Catholics or anything else that grabs at their shirt collars. Hatred has no logic and, as pointed out by a number of posters here, Phelp''s diatribes against gaye lifestyles has nothing to do with the war in Iraq or the soldiers killed in it.
Posted by beehive21
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If anyone disrupts YOUR Funeral? Shoot em?
Yeah if a dead guy shoots ya what are they gonna do about it. :-)
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Hey, it could happen.
I thought the God in the old testament was mean and hateful, but Fred Phelps takes the trophy for mean and hateful.
Posted by Bob5ford at 09:04 AM : Aug 23, 2008
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What does politics have to do with it? In fact, most ultra-religious groups are conservative, and most conservatives have a deep-seated dispise for "people not like themselves." Especially ****$exuals.
Phelps'' and his fanatics are a really sick group that is simply acting out the frustration that most conservative christians have because they can''t control the lifestyles of everyone.
Fortunately, the court got it right. Let''s hope the ruling works.
Posted by maxify55 at 06:40 AM : Aug 23, 2008
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If you don''t have respect for the grieving then you don''t have any self-respect. But then, Phelps and his fanatics aren''t rational people.
Posted by aggiekat2004 at 06:38 PM : Aug 22, 2008
Actually, what does the "supernatural" have to do with any of it?
These are people using the supernatural as an excuse for their abnormal behavior. Not too much different than the fundamentalist Mormons.
Posted by aggiekat2004 at 06:35 PM : Aug 22, 2008
Forcing religion on a child is CHILD ABUSE...
Posted by messiahx4eve at 11:03 PM : Aug 22, 2008
Or "The God Delusion" by Richard Dawking. It turns the tables on religion, all religions.
Phelps and his lunatics are a perfect example of people deluded by the supernatural.
"When one person is suffering from delusions, it''s called insanity. When a group of people are suffering from delusions, it''s called religion."
LOL!!! ONLY ONE in a THOUSAND responders agree with Fred''s message of hate? Not even his fellow Christians support him.
Send Fred your own "special" message and tell him, "What you are doing to the families of our dead servicemen is immoral and inhumane, and you deserve to rot in h*ll, as you surely will."
Email your message to admin@godhatesamerica.com
Posted by dirtydog55 at 02:02 PM : Aug 23, 2008
Religion is the greatest hoax ever perpetrated on mankind.
Second would be WMD, WMD, WMD, the sky is falling.
What a distorted, dangerous, and outright wacky point view these folks harbor and teach their children.
Besides, if the so called mythical God of legend were to punish anyone, it would be murderous leaders such as Hitler and Bush.
Posted by libsluv2spit at 05:44 PM : Aug 22, 2008
Speaking of tolerance... LOL!!! Do you know the meaning of "christian taliban?"
LOL!!! The Southern Babtists have a monopoly on intolerance... Ha Ha Ha...they even have their own bible.
Anybody that would picket a funeral, in my opinion is a sick, evil person. People are there to mourn the passing of a loved one and should not have to put up with this kind of nonsense. I think that this is a terrible thing for anyone to do.
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Which is, of course absurd. Their deaths are punishment for electing and re-electing a moron as president.
Posted by Element51 at 05:19 PM : Aug 23, 2008
He exists, and the fact that he allows man to determine his own lifestyle is proof that he isn''t warped like man is.
LOL!!! ONLY ONE in a THOUSAND responders agree with Fred''''s message of hate? Not even his fellow Christians support him.
I''ve got good news for you; 0.01% is 1 in 10,000, so he''s 10 times more irrelevant than you give him credit for.
I am surprised that some of the bereaved family have not set upon these vermin and inflicted serious or fatal bodily injury. It''s going to happen one of these days--and bystanders will rejoice!
Who are they to preach? It''s so ridiculous.
If the bible said we should keep black people as slaves, they would go along with that.
"It''s in the Holy Bible. It''s the truth. God''s word!"
Regards,
Posted by Nancy_Naive at 09:23 AM : Aug 24, 2008
Yes, everybody seems to take note of that. It would be nice to see non-religious take note of the good in religion.
Regards
Posted by messiahx4eve at 10:01 PM : Aug 24, 2008
I never mentioned what type of religion I was referring to because I was using the same "All inclusive brush" that others use but in a positive context. Go read the Christian New Testament and discover that Jesus himself called "organized religion" a "Whited sepulcher". That was his sole purpose, to make GOD reachable by the common man, to give GOD back to the people that the organized church had stolen for themselves. But so many lump him in with the thieves of the organized church that his sacrifice is ignored and hidden. That is the biggest shame of mankind that I know of.
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