ACLU Sues Over Law Banning Protests At Soldiers' Funerals

ACLU Sues Over Law Banning Protests At Soldiers' Funerals

POSTED: 5:49 am CDT May 2, 2006

FRANKFORT, Ky. -- The American Civil Liberties Union is challenging a Kentucky law aimed at preventing protests from disrupting funerals for soldiers killed in Iraq.

Members of a Kansas Baptist church have protested at military funerals, claiming soldiers' deaths are a sign that God is punishing America for tolerating homosexuality.

The new law, signed by Kentucky Gov. Ernie Fletcher in March, bans protests within 300 feet of memorial services, wakes and burials. Violators can be charged with first-degree disorderly conduct, punishable by up to a year in jail.

The ACLU said the Kentucky law goes too far in limiting speech and expression.

The ACLU argues that people could unknowingly violate it by stopping to chat on a public sidewalk near a funeral home. The civil liberties group said it could also prevent pro-military people from participating in counter-protests outside memorial services.

A spokesman for Fletcher said, "It's inconceivable why anyone would want to protest at a military funeral while family members are there."

Free speech is just that: free speech.

Can't ban it just because you don't like what they have to say.

Don't you think a funeral should be at time of mourning, not protesting? Couldn't they have found a better place and time to protest at?

If you'll take the time to review the bill, which you obviously didn't, it isn't banned it is restricted to a certain distance.

umm....if you ban the protestors there's NO NEED FOR A COUNTER-PROTEST!!!!

(dumbass)

PS - that's directed at the ACLU...not you Leck

What the ACLU obviously doesn't understand is that any appearance by the Patriot Guard Riders is strictly by INVITATION of the family. So, check mate.

This sort of thing is why situations like this need to bundled with HARASSMENT law, not public disorder laws.

Since the protest is religious in nature, it can be labeled as religious harassment to disrupt a funeral with their garbage.

If I was at a funeral like that and someone started protesting... well, they'd be buring more people.

Of course I do, any decent person would. I would never burn a flag either, but that doesn't mean someone else doesn't have the right to do it they want.



Now this seems like a better course to take.

This is my favorite part:




Since when is stopping to chat a protest?

If the speech they present is your idea of free speech ..... I'll just say I'm apalled. There has to be a damned limit somewhere to 'free speech'.

As much as I don't like protests at funerals, ITS STILL FREE SPEECH.


The ACLU is in the right. This is a matter of law not emotion.

I should have posted my predictions for who would agree with the ACLU when I made the OP.
*shakes head disgustedly*

There is no limit to free speech, Lektor. Otherwise it wouldn't be free speech.

The ACLU is definitely in the right. Protect the right to protest (especially in regards to how a poorly-written law could be abused) and cycle it over into harassment law. The charges may not be criminal charges, but most churches are too tightly wound on the checkbook to withstand a lawsuit.

Of course, I also think harassment laws should be encompassed as misdemeanors, instead of civil charges.

The really sad part is that people even have to consider these laws.

How much you wanna bet the Westboro Baptist Church clowns (or their imitators) at which the original law is aimed have themselves talked shit about the ACLU, as supporting "godless fags in opposition to God's Law" or somesuch?

Of course there is, the old example of shouting "Fire!" in a crowded theater being a prime example.

<soapbox> These nutjobs do, unfortunately, have the right to say what they like, but they do NOT have the right to interfere with the funeral. As much as I would like to ban these so-called Christians outright, I agree that setting a distance parameter is the most logical way to handle this.

I am just waiting for the day when someone decides they have had enough and sends one or more of these know-it-all bigots directly to Hell (do not pass Go, do not collect a heavenly reward). Of course, that will cause further heartache for their family because, obviously, they will be prosecuted... but I can't help but think about the look on their face when they wake up in Hell and go "Huh? I ain't s'posed ta be HERE!?!?"

Oh, and the ACLU can kiss my a$$.

Thank you. That is all.

</soapbox>

P2

The supreme irony of this is that the group which spurred the creation of the law (Rev. Fred Phelps' Westboro Baptist Church) has accused the ACLU of being "a bunch of fags".

This is far beyond just protest -- this bunch of hate-mongers started out picketing the funerals of AIDS victims with their reprehensible anti-gay posters and rhetoric, and have moved on to anything which gets a camera or a microphone for their vitriole - including funerals of Iraqi casualties.

I live in the general area where they operate, and I've seen and heard things from them that defy imagination. 10-12 year old kids carrying day-glo signs depicting stick people having anal sex, assertions that "God hates fags" (which is the URL for their website, btw - www.godhatesfags.com), "Fags die, God laughs", and so forth.

Their leader, Fred, is a cruel, heartless bastard who beat his wife with an axe handle (because the Bible told him he could) as well as his many children (most of whom are now lawyers). He's been disbarred but still acts through his adult children -- the one who haven't moved away and disowned him, anyway.

It says a great deal too, that he never goes out in public without a bullet proof vest.

The ACLU isn't very careful about the battles they choose, that's all I can say. The families of the deceased have a right to grieve in peace, too.

This is where I think the ACLU gets a bum rap and exactly (IMO) why they are so important as an organization. In order for any of the rights, freedoms, and liberties we enjoy in this country to have any meaning, any value, we must defend those rights, freedoms, and liberties for one and all.

Of course, the Kansas protesters are obscene, off base, insane, pitiful, disturbed -- senseless and shameless and unforgivable in their actions. That they exploit grief for their own agenda is reprehensible. But I don't want to take away their right to be asses -- because I want you, and I, and every one with a message and opinion to have a voice.

From your posts, I know this is an important issue to you, personally. I apologize in advance if my post in any way seems insensitive to your passions -- that is absolutely not my intent.

I think the credibility of the ACLU comes into stake if they "pick their battles" in a lot of cases.

They can't have credibility supporting free speech if they..well...don't. Even when the speech is loud and annoying.

You'll note, however, the law is challenged not because of its spirit, but because of how it is written. It's ambiguous and leaves too much open forum for abuse. If the law stated that funeral homes, as private property, have the right to bar protest from their land (which most funeral homes are, indeed, private property), then the law wouldn't be coming into challenge.

The problem with that Lektor is who gets to set those limits? Everyone has different standards as to what is acceptable and what isn't. While I agree with you that these people are deplorable, that's just my opinion. But my opinion is just that, an opinion. It's not a basis for limiting free speech.

If you limit one type of speech, it leads to another limit, then another, then another. Pretty soon you are in a situation where just saying a certain word will get you thrown in jail. That is the way it is in the UK. If you say certain racially demeaning words in public, for whatever reason, you can be arrested and put in jail.

The price of freedom is accepting that others will have opinions that you find vile and dispicable.

I regretfully agree that it is their constitutional right to 'free speech'. That being said, I think it's high time for an amendment to an amendment.

Once again I'll state that they aren't being limited to what they can say at all.
I think the ACLU will go broke on this one as KY isn't the only state to have passed such laws. My state, AL for instance just recently passed it and it is even more stringent than the KY law, making it a class D Felony.

What happens when a city or state enacts a ban that says no one can protest about gay rights withing 300 feet of a hetrosexual?