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Fred Phelps
j.U.d.E.:
HE LIVED WITH THEM FOR A MONTH!?!? :o Wasn't he worried about not getting out there alive??
I had never heard of the Phelps before last year either, but somewhere here on BMost, a thread mentioned Fred Phelps and family and their scary actions.. I checked Wikipedia too.
j. U. d. E.
Kelda:
Actually it was 3 weeks.. here's his take on them.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/magazine/6507971.stm
http://www.bbc.co.uk/bbctwo/noise/?id=louis_theroux - this one has a podcast but I can't access it from work.
j.U.d.E.:
--- Quote from: Kelda on April 02, 2007, 08:34:59 am ---Actually it was 3 weeks.. here's his take on them.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/magazine/6507971.stm
http://www.bbc.co.uk/bbctwo/noise/?id=louis_theroux - this one has a podcast but I can't access it from work.
--- End quote ---
Thank you Kelda. I will watch at home, 'cause I'm at the office now.. :-\
j. U. d. E.
David:
That guy is sick.
If he was targeting any other group, he would be stopped. But Gay people are the last tollerated target by society. Yes, he is making people mad. But we are not violent or a threat to him.
But now that he is picketing military funerals, maybe a disgrunteled veteran with post stress syndrome will put a bullet in Mr. Phelps.
Kelda:
The problem that would make that person as bad as him.
From the wikipedia article it looks like they have done something around the funerals...but that doesn't seem to stop him doing it at non armed forces funerals.
--- Quote ---Legislation
On May 24, 2006, the United States House and Senate passed the Respect for America's Fallen Heroes Act, which President Bush signed five days later. The act bans protests within 300 feet of national cemeteries — which numbered 122 when the bill was signed — from an hour before a funeral to an hour after it. Violators face up to a $100,000 fine and up to a year in prison.[47]
As of April 2006, at least 17 states have banned protests near funeral sites immediately before and after ceremonies, or are considering it. These are: Illinois,[48][49] Indiana,[50] Iowa,[51] Kansas,[52] Kentucky,[53] Louisiana,[54] Maryland,[55]Michigan,[56] Missouri,[57] which passed the law, and Nebraska, Ohio, Oklahoma,[58] South Carolina,[59] South Dakota, Texas, Vermont, Virginia, West Virginia, and Wisconsin.[60] Florida increased the penalty for disturbing military funerals, amending a previous ban on the disruption of lawful assembly.[61]
These bans have not been uncontested. Bart McQueary, having protested with Phelps on at least three occasions,[62] filed a lawsuit in federal court challenging the constitutionality of Kentucky's funeral protest ban. On September 26, 2006, a district court agreed and entered an injunction prohibiting the ban from being enforced.[62] In the opinion, the judge wrote:
Sections 5(1)(b) and (c) restrict substantially more speech than that which would interfere with a funeral or that which would be so obtrusive that funeral participants could not avoid it. Accordingly, the provisions are not narrowly tailored to serve a significant government interest but are instead unconstitutionally overbroad.
The American Civil Liberties Union filed a lawsuit in Missouri on behalf of Phelps and Westboro Baptist Church to overturn the ban on the picketing of soldier's funerals.[63] The ACLU of Ohio also filed a similar lawsuit.[64]
Other responses
To counter the Phelps' protests at funerals of soldiers, a group of motorcycle riders has formed the Patriot Guard Riders to provide a nonviolent, volunteer buffer between the protesters and mourners.[47]
In addition, when Phelps and his Westboro followers have shown up at Walter Reed Army Medical Center or other locales in the Washington area, they have been actively protested by the DC Chapter of Free Republic, a conservative website.
--- End quote ---
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