Drawing the Line

They're at it still, it's a traveling band of people who somehow are free from the constraints of life as we know it to travel the country solely to protest at military funerals.

Link

Last week, U.S. District Judge Karen Caldwell wrote that the state law could restrict the free speech rights of people in nearby homes, sidewalks and streets, even if they cannot be seen or heard by funeral participants.

You know what? Good for her! Not like the demonstration didn't take place anyway.

Look, there is a time and a place for everything, I'm tired of sitting here and pretending "1st Amendment" takes all. There is no sense of decency anymore.

I'm really starting to think we've all been duped into a general degredation of decency in society by this whole right to free speech issue.

Get some manners! L(earn) some respect! We have been programmed in the name of free speech to just sit here and say, awww geee....I can't stand when you do that, but I defend your right to do it, kissy kissy.

I think it's become a joke. People are using this attitude to go beyond the limits just to be able to draw attention to themselves, and we are sitting here and falling for it.

Sorry, but I'm going to defend the right of any family to have a peaceful funeral for their family member, especially a military loss, whether I agree with the war or not, long before I'm going to defend someone's 1st amendment rights.

*waits for the fallout*

[edit on 9/30/2006 by Relentless]

No fallout from me.

To protest at a funeral just because you disagree with practices that take place elsewhere is simply misguided lunacy.

If those jerks want to stop homosexuality, protesting at a funeral isn't the way to do it. In every culture throughout history there have been gays. Trying to stop homosexuality is like trying to stop people from growing toenails. Still, if you want to try it, aim your protest in the right direction. You might as well try to end left handedness by protesting people using public restrooms. The two don't really connect.

In my opinion, grieving and burrying the dead should come before the right to protest.

Well I happen to be a big free speech advocate, and think that the
judge made a mistake ruling the way she did..

That said, I do disagree with these people disrupting funeral and
the like, and their general message.

Wha she should have ruled is that because it took away the right
of the funeral attendies to have a peaceful funeral.


Anyways, that's just my opinion.

Originally posted by iori_komei
Wha she should have ruled is that because it took away the right
of the funeral attendies to have a peaceful funeral.

You could be right. I wonder what basis she used to make her ruling and what basis the court that overturned her took. Because there should be a way that the ruling could have protected the rights of the mourning to bury their dead without harrassment.

Could this just be another case of flimsy legal work or did the rights of free speech seriously take precedence over the rights of others? Guess I'll have to try to find the rulings.

Originally posted by wellwhatnow
No fallout from me.

To protest at a funeral just because you disagree with practices that take place elsewhere is simply misguided lunacy.

If those jerks want to stop homosexuality, protesting at a funeral isn't the way to do it. In every culture throughout history there have been gays. Trying to stop homosexuality is like trying to stop people from growing toenails. Still, if you want to try it, aim your protest in the right direction. You might as well try to end left handedness by protesting people using public restrooms. The two don't really connect.

In my opinion, grieving and burrying the dead should come before the right to protest.

I'm sorry, but I just had to interject.....wellwhatnow, do you have any idea what this thread is about? There are people who are anti-WAR protesters who go to military funerals -- the funerals of fallen soldiers -- to protest. This thread has absolutely nothing to do with homosexuality.

I may agree with your views on homosexuality but your views on the subject of homosexuality have little or nothing to do with the subject of this thread. I can understand that you are relatively new to ATS and that you might be eager to make posts and to express your views however it might really help if you made your views known in a thread where they might be more contextual.

Actually Benevolent the so called protestors are'nt anti-war,
they're anti-gay and they hate America because we don't make homo-
sexuality punishable by death, and that we accept it.

These people make me sick, not just because of their warped
religiously tinted views about homosexuality, but because they interrupt
the funeral, which in itself is bad enough, but they say the soldiers
dieing is a good thing, while waving sighns with things like "God Hates Fags." and "America is getting what it deserves for disobeying Gods word."


I may not approve of the warmyself, but I know that the majority of
our soldiers who go their think their doing it for the right cause.


EDIT:
Spelling & Adding a sentence that I forgot to put in.

[edit on 10/1/2006 by iori_komei]

its not the protest, but the way the protest is done IMHO. if someone was sitting outside the funeral home quietly and respectfully holding signs that read "another brave soldier dies for no reason" that would be one thing, but these idiots scream at the deceased's families and call them "mothers of whores" and "faggots". someone should be sueing this group....take away their assets and they cant afford to pull this crap.

My apologies to wellwhatnow. And my thanks to iori_komei for pointing out my error.

For fanatics to protest homosexuality at military funerals is simpy incongruous. If anyone is be "out of context" (as I had wrongly accused wellwhatnow of being) it has to be this sadly misguided group.

I had heard of a group of protesters at the funerals of military personnel who had been killed in Irag several weeks ago while listening to the news. I obviously missed the part where this group was, somehow, associating their hatred of homosexuality with the war in Iraq. Frankly, if anyone lacks a contextual basis, it has to be these lunatics.

From the article, the protesters are members of a Kansas Church who believe that the soldiers were killed because of some sort of "punishment" or chastisement from God -- because of homosexuality?. Frankly, this is the most ludicrous thing that I've heard in a while. It is inane and irrational on so many levels I'd laugh if it wasn't so tragically true.

I'd gladly give up my "spot in Heaven" just to watch God mete out justice and true retribution against these asinine, bigoted, hatefilled, ignorant fools.

What kills me is that the people whos funeral they protest at do not have anything to do with their issues. These people do more harm to their cause than good they are forcing people to want to be against them.
It seems to me there is more here than meets the eye but just can not decide what it could be. I can not be around people like that because I would old school beat them all Men and Women even if I know it might be wrong.

Found an article regarding the ruling that over turned the restriction on protesting at miltary funerals.

Link

It seems the Kentucky version had some problems which (big surprise) the ACLU went after. Apparently this should not affect other similarly written laws. But they are probably going after other states.

The Rev. Fred Phelps, who heads the church, and the church have been sued in Maryland and Missouri by family members of dead soldiers.

Lutgens said Caldwell's ruling could impact the laws in other states, depending on how those laws are written and their similarities to Kentucky's statute. Phelps-Roper said other judges should follow Caldwell's lead and strike down laws barring funeral protests.

Here's one of the church's gems:

At their protests, members of the Kansas group carry such signs as "Thank God for IEDs," the improvised explosive devices used by insurgents in Iraq.

That's just sick. I really want to know how these people are able to find the financial freedom to have time for this, and couldn't they put it to better use? I'd love to see who's really behind this effort financially.





[edit on 10/2/2006 by Relentless]

This group tried that stunt here in Washington; they were met outside the cemetary by a group of people including vets, bikers and well in general people from all walks of life and blocked. There was no violence they just weren't allowed to pass. What this group believes and does is in my opinion sick and totally warped.

Oh, isn't this special...not.

Westboro cretins raise their creepy little heads again...

Fred Phelps is the "leader" of this band of merry morons, who's sole purpose in life, apparently, is to go around the country, protesting at soldiers funerals against America's toleration of homosexuality.

If ever there was a validation of the old saying "People in glass houses...", Fred Phelps is a living breathing example of it.

I think God is perfectly capable of pointing out the errors of our ways, if such exist, his own self. He most certainly wouldn't use a cretin of the calibre of Fred Phelps to do so.

God, what a creepy little man...

For a fuller look into the character of this odius little man try this link. The site works, just my talent for linking to it may lack .

Might help if I actually added the link. Sorry.Fred Phelps, a short history.

[edit on 4-10-2006 by seagull]

Oh my freaking gosh!

This group has a problem with the Govenor of PA, and therefore intend to protest the funerals of the Amish girls gunned down in the school attack!



Edit: Sorry, I tried to find a link quickly, but I have to get going, I saw it on the news a few minutes ago.

[edit on 10/4/2006 by Relentless]

That just proves it, doesn't it? What did those Amish girls do to circumvent "god's will"? I'll answer my own question nothing, except in Phelp's twisted little world. You know, I don't generally claim to hate very many people, because to hate someone requires you to have a personal knowledge of that person. For Phelps, I'll make an exception, I despise the very earth he walks on...the very air he desecrates by the act of breathing...he is so godless as to rate a spot in Dante's Inferno...If I haven't made my point sufficiently clear, I hate this little maggot.

To protest at little girls funerals...? It's fairly obvious this man and most of his group lack anything even resembling a grasp of common decency.