http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/2011/0111/F...ist-Church

The Arizona state government has quickly passed a bill making it illegal for anyone to hold a protest within 300 feet of a church conducting a burial service. Apparently the Westboro Baptist Church in Topeka feels that God is punishing us for our latent homosexuality by killing US soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan. And they've protested other recent services such as the one for Elizabeth Edwards.

When Arizona heard they were going to protest the services of some of the people killed in Tucson, they quickly went into action and passed this bi-partisan bill.

Tucson residents also sprang into action when news of the planned protests spread. Many intend to meet the picketers with human barricades and some say they will wear oversize “angel wings” to shield mourners from seeing the protesters along the funeral routes. Good for them.

Also, the Supreme Court is hearing a case tomorrow that refers to this church holding an anti-gay protest back in 2006 after his son died in Iraq. He successfully sued the church for $5 million dollars although that verdict was later overturned. The Supreme Court will decide whether the First Ammendment applies in this case or not.

If I had a delivery system with a 25 foot CEP of these Westboro Baptist Church members, I'd call it in.

Good for Arizona that this law has been passed. I encourage the local law-enforcement officials to be -- within reasonable limits -- as brutal and violent as possible in terms of enforcement (in order to teach the Westboro-types a lesson), and if any arrests result, I encourage judges to set bond as high as legally permissible (same reason).

Huntsville, Alabama had a clever way of dealing with those yo-yos a year or two ago. They gave the right reverend Fred and his inbreds a roped-off zone all their own, directly across the street from the church where a serviceman's funeral was being held.

Then they parked a couple of city buses in front of it.

They were supposed to protest an HS friend of mine's funeral, after he died in Iraq. Most of the county turned up, and lined the streets so they couldn't get near the family.

Fred Phelps needs to be curb-jobbed.

I don't know if the courts have ruled on this, but I know for many locations you have to get various permits from the community to have any large scale events (parades, festivals, etc.). How have communities not passed these ordinances and then just denied Westboro permits, then arrest and fine them once they show up? I mean, we're kind of playing tippy-toe with the 1st amendment, but still, paperwork disappears all the time, plus they can take up to a month to grant, so by the time they did get it the funeral could be over?

the arrest-trial-conviction-pardon cycle should be on fast-track if there were any unfortunate incidents.

While I agree with the passing of the law to prevent these scumbags from making a mockery, there is no way that the Arizona law holds up in court. All of the Phelps people are lawyers and apparently know the rules according to what is and isn't allowed. And they love stuff like this to get them even more publicity. I can't see this holding up in an appeals court.

Off the top of my head, I think the Right to Assembly is in question here as well as a law favoring a religious organization over any other organization.

Again, something needs to be done about Phelps and his gang, but laws banning them is not the way to go.

Life must be a barrel of laughs for the members of the WBC.

(01-11-2011 11:10 PM)Memphis Blazer Wrote:  While I agree with the passing of the law to prevent these scumbags from making a mockery, there is no way that the Arizona law holds up in court. All of the Phelps people are lawyers and apparently know the rules according to what is and isn't allowed. And they love stuff like this to get them even more publicity. I can't see this holding up in an appeals court.

Off the top of my head, I think the Right to Assembly is in question here as well as a law favoring a religious organization over any other organization.

Again, something needs to be done about Phelps and his gang, but laws banning them is not the way to go.

They're letting them assemble, just not at any place, at any time.

I don't think that's necessarily unconstitutional.

And, if the law is in place for a few weeks, then gets overturned, c'est la vie.

Here in Oklahoma, McAlester, their tires were flattened. No local shop would repair them. AAA eventually loaded them up and took them to a Wal-Mart. Restaurants put up signs that they wouldn't be served.

(01-11-2011 11:10 PM)Memphis Blazer Wrote:  While I agree with the passing of the law to prevent these scumbags from making a mockery, there is no way that the Arizona law holds up in court. All of the Phelps people are lawyers and apparently know the rules according to what is and isn't allowed. And they love stuff like this to get them even more publicity. I can't see this holding up in an appeals court.

Off the top of my head, I think the Right to Assembly is in question here as well as a law favoring a religious organization over any other organization.

Again, something needs to be done about Phelps and his gang, but laws banning them is not the way to go.

Well, public scorn doesn't seem to phase them.

Somewhere there was a story about a biker gang that faced them down, quietly standing in front of the WBC and keeping them from seeing the going-ons of the funeral.

I suggest that in Arizona, all Members of Congress attend this furneral and do the same. So that Congress really understands what inflamatory hate speech is....

They are going to protest at the Judge's Funeral instead of the little girl's

KANSAS CITY, Mo. -- A controversial Kansas church has decided not protest at the funeral of a 9-year-old girl killed in Saturday's shooting rampage in Tucson, Ariz.

Shirley Phelps-Roper of the Westboro Baptist Church in Topeka, Kan., says church members will skip Thursday's funeral of Christina Taylor Green.

Phelps-Roper was interviewed Tuesday by a station in Toronto, Canada, and is scheduled to be on a morning talk show Saturday. She says Westboro Baptist Church decided not to picket in exchange for the airtime.

Phelps-Roper says the group will picket the funeral Friday for U.S. District Judge John Roll and at the intersection where Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords and others were shot.

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2011/01/...z1AqrFTPZD

(01-12-2011 02:38 PM)WMD Owl Wrote:  They are going to protest at the Judge's Funeral instead of the little girl's

She says Westboro Baptist Church decided not to picket in exchange for the airtime.

Phelps-Roper says the group will picket the funeral Friday for U.S. District Judge John Roll and at the intersection where Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords and others were shot.

Well sure, the judge was a Roman Catholic, so he's obviously going to hell.

300 feet is not very far. Depending on the background noise the attendees of the funeral can probably easily hear them. I think the best thing here is for those people to return home to find their church and houses burned down.

(01-12-2011 03:47 PM)smn1256 Wrote:  300 feet is not very far. Depending on the background noise the attendees of the funeral can probably easily hear them. I think the best thing here is for those people to return home to find their church and houses burned down.

Is that statement sort of like distributing a leaflet with symbols that someone thinks look like crosshairs?

Sort of. Could be. But karma can be a *****.

Sort of OT: A blogger has done a bit of "research" into the Westboro clan and their "church" and says that "Westboro Not Baptist or Fundamentalist."

Quote:In its entry for Fred Phelps, Sr., Wikipedia also notes:

During 1993–94 interviews with the Topeka Capital-Journal, the four Phelps children (out of thirteen, Mark, Nate, Katherine and Dotty) who had left the church asserted that their father’s religious beliefs were either nonexistent to begin with or have dwindled down to nearly nothing. They insist that Westboro actually serves to enable a paraphilia of Phelps, wherein he is literally addicted to hatred.

So why does our watchdog media insist on describing this group as a fundamentalist Baptist church?

When was the last time the Peoples Temple of Jim Jones and the Kool-aid suicide cult was described as part of the Disciples of Christ? (When, in fact, they were affiliated with the DoC.)

Perhaps it is because the Westboro clan actually seek to discredit Baptists and evangelical Christian by taking every stereotypical accusation to an absurdity.

The WBC not only claims to hate homosexuals, but they are also anti-Catholic, anti-Semitic and racist — just for starters.

And as for the implicit but unmistakable implication throughout all the media stories that the Phelps cult is somehow conservative, their only political history seems to be quite in the other direction:

Again, from Wikipedia:

Phelps has run in various Kansas Democratic Party primaries five times, but has never won. These included races for governor in 1990, 1994, and 1998, receiving about 15% of the vote in 1998.[35] In the 1992 Democratic Party primary for U.S. Senate, Phelps received 31% of the vote Phelps ran for mayor of Topeka in 1993 and 1997.

Take from this whatever you wish. This is info I had never seen or heard before. Kind of sheds a new light on this supposed "conservative" church, at least according to media.

http://sweetness-light.com/archive/westb...amentalist

BTW - the best new phrase coined in the aftermath of the Tucson tragedy came from Michelle Malkin today. "Blamestream Media"

(01-11-2011 10:37 PM)Rebel Wrote:  Fred Phelps needs to be curb-jobbed.

Not violent enough. I have some ideas that would suffice.