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Monday, July 24, 2006

A Match Made In Heaven

It’s not as though this will come as a great surprise, but…

KANSAS CITY, Mo. -- A Kansas church group that protests at military funerals nationwide filed suit in federal court, saying a Missouri law banning such picketing infringes on religious freedom and free speech.

The American Civil Liberties Union filed the lawsuit Friday in the U.S. District Court in Jefferson City, Mo., on behalf of the fundamentalist Westboro Baptist Church, which has outraged mourning communities by picketing service members' funerals with signs condemning homosexuality.

The church and the Rev. Fred Phelps say God is allowing troops, coal miners and others to be killed because the United States tolerates gay men and lesbians.

Missouri lawmakers were spurred to action after members of the church protested in St. Joseph, Mo., last August at the funeral of Army Spec. Edward L. Myers.

The law bans picketing and protests "in front of or about" any location where a funeral is held, from an hour before it begins until an hour after it ends. Offenders can face fines and jail time.

A number of other state laws and a federal law, signed in May by President Bush, bar such protests within a certain distance of a cemetery or funeral.

In the lawsuit, the ACLU says the Missouri law tries to limit protesters' free speech based on the content of their message. It is asking the court to declare the ban unconstitutional and to issue an injunction to keep it from being enforced, which would allow the group to resume picketing.


The execrable Fred Phelps and the equally despicable ACLU together might well be considered a match made in heaven... that is if the ACLU personnel actually believed in such a thing as heaven in the first place.

Needless to say, there is nothing whatsoever in any of the subject statutes, including Missouri's that in any way addresses "content" of the protests, as claimed by the ACLU and Phelps.

Instead of taking this action seriously, we should regard it as the ACLU's obligatory once-in-a-blue-moon action on behalf of a truly rightwing extremist group, so as to justify their continued leftwing assault on the American way of life. Missouri, part of the traditional American heartland, is hardly a hotbed of liberal radicalism, judicial or otherwise. If this was a serious effort by the ACLU, rather than a litigational publicity stunt, I would expect they might have gone after the federal statute rather than a Missouri state law, and done so in a more firendly judicial environment.

Comments

Avatar for The Whistler

Fred Phelps is not right-wing.  If you look at Wiki you’ll see that he always supported Democrats and actually was close to some familiar names.

I’m not printing the names as I don’t think they’d have anything to do with him.  I also don’t think the Demoncrats would have anything to do with him.

Not right wing, just a loonball dirtbag.

The Whistler on July 24, 2006 at 06:18 am
Avatar for Bat One

Whistler,

You may very well be right about Phelps support for Democrats.  I don’t know and honestly don’t care.

However, Phelps strident anti-gay agenda is perceived publicly as a “rightwing” stand, and his virulent brand of conservative christianity is certainly not disavowed by the MSM as not representative of the Evangelical Right.

My point, however, remains the same regardless of the precise political nomenclature:  This is not a serious effort by the ACLU, but an attempt to publicly demonstrate a modest ideological balance… the exception that proves the on-going anti-American, leftist rule.

Bat One on July 24, 2006 at 06:47 am
Avatar for The Whistler

his virulent brand of conservative christianity is certainly not disavowed by the MSM as not representative of the Evangelical Right.

Anyone know where to get a double-negative decoder?

The Whistler on July 24, 2006 at 06:57 am
Avatar for robert108

TW: Double negatives aside, Bat made a good point.  I think the ACLU has a problem with Fred, and here it is: He is anti-military, which is good, and he gives Christianity a bad name, which is also good, as far as the ACLU is concerned, but he is a Christian, so they can’t support him, and he is anti-gay, which is not OK with them.

robert108 on July 24, 2006 at 07:07 am
Avatar for The Whistler

Being fellow nutballs must have been the tiebreaker for the ACLU.

As you say batman had a good point.  The ACLU picks the most damaging of the perceived “right-wingers” to give their support to.

The Whistler on July 24, 2006 at 07:09 am
Avatar for Common Sense

You are all thinking about this too hard.

I have a friend that used to be a lawyer with the ACLU. I asked him if it was hard to defend fringe groups like the KKK. He said he was paid to protect the constitution, even for idiots, racists and assholes.

They pick cases based on constitutionality, not likability. Period.

Common Sense on July 24, 2006 at 09:26 am
Avatar for robert108

I doubt that.  They have a definite leftward political agenda, which has been demonstrated many times.

robert108 on July 24, 2006 at 09:28 am
Avatar for The Whistler

He said he was paid to protect the constitution, even for idiots, racists.....

They’ve come out and said that they would give no help to abortion protesters.

The Whistler on July 24, 2006 at 09:32 am
Avatar for Fred Phelps

Lable my intense hatred of homosexuals as “right wing” if you wish, but I’m a 1960s Civil Rights Era Democrat.  In 1988, I housed campaign workers for Al Gore’s first presidential run; in 1989, my eldest son, Fred Jr., hosted a fundraiser for Gore’s Senate campaign at his home. I’ve frequently run for public office as a democrat—for governor in 1990, ‘94, and ‘98, for the Senate in ‘92—always losing the primaries by a landslide. Because of our years as loyal Democrats, the Phelpses have even been invited to—and attended—both of Clinton’s inaugurations.

Fred Phelps on July 24, 2006 at 12:52 pm
Avatar for Bat One

If Joe Lieberman’s situation is any indication, the only criteria that matters to Democrats today is opposing the war in Iraq.  Of course the Democrats, for whom honesty is the modern day equivalent of leprosy, have offered all manner of silly excuses for trying to rid themselves of Lieberman, but the truth is what it is.

As long as Phelps and friends continue protesting at military funerals, I doubt that the Dems will object, even if the protests are against one of the left’s ppremier victims’ groups.

Bat One on July 24, 2006 at 01:21 pm
Avatar for TwoHotel9

Fred Phelps is a known homosexual and has practiced sodomy upon his own children and the children of members of his cult. That is why the ACLU took this case.

TwoHotel9 on July 24, 2006 at 02:13 pm
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