Court Rules Against ACLU and Protestors in Military Funeral Lawsuit
Posted on February 6, 2007
Gee, a Judge with some sense…
From The National Register:
Last week, a U.S. District Court in Missouri denied a request by ACLU lawyers to prevent the state from enforcing rules that limit protests near funeral services. The ACLU filed the lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of the law on behalf of protesters who were picketing and disrupting military funerals.
As you may remember, in November, Judicial Watch filed an amicus curiae brief arguing, among other things, that funeral attendees have a right to mourn those who died defending our country without being disrupted by protesters.
The court order, issued by federal Judge Fernando J. Gaitan, Jr. adopts an argument made by Judicial Watch that Missouri’s “funeral protection law†is well-grounded in Eighth Circuit judicial precedent and is consistent with the U.S. Constitution. On another point, Judge Gaitan specifically cites Judicial Watch’s brief in his ruling, writing: “…amicus Judicial Watch notes that Missouri also has an interest in protecting funeral attendees’ First Amendment rights to free exercise of religion.â€
The ACLU never ceases to amaze, now do they. To actually claim people have a right to disrupt a funeral service based on free speech. Forget about a fallen hero’s funeral! Free speech has its limits and in a day and age when we cannot knock someone on their backside for behaving inappropriately, we need these limits to be clear.
I personally could not witness something like this without knocking people on their backsides.
I saw the two daughters, which happen to be lawyers, on TV and they are serious freaks of nature. The Westboro Baptist Church gives all Christians a blackeye.
» Filed Under ACLU
Trackback URL
Comments
13 Responses to “Court Rules Against ACLU and Protestors in Military Funeral Lawsuit”
-
Affiliations
The Giants
-
Advertise
Donate
Our Store
Click the design to visit our store and help Stop the ACLU!
Stop the ACLU blogburst
-
More blogs about the ACLU
Syndicate Me
Where were you when Phelps was protesting Matthew Shephard’s funeral?
Why were no laws passed to protect his family’s right to religious freedom?
Do you see why a person might think that this is a content-based restriction?
I’ll bet my bottom dollar the ACLU didn’t use the word “disrupt.” There are already laws on the books which handle disruptions.
For the record, I don’t support the Westboro church and I can’t think of too many instances that would justify a funeral protest, but I’m concerned about the precedent we’re setting here.
You’re right that there are a few limits to free speech, but do we really want to let/encourage our lawmakers to increase the number of limits every time some radicals come up with a creative new way to get press coverage?
Where were you when Phelps was protesting Matthew Shephard’s funeral?
Phelps and his ilk were not exactly on the national radar at the time and I don’t recall anything said about the protest then. Do you?
I don’t support the Westboro Church (won’t call them Baptist). Furthermore, they shouldn’t have been at Shephard’s funeral – don’t support the gay agenda either, but they (the church) shouldn’t have been there. Families should expect the right (is that really the right word though) to mourn in private if desired. They should expect respect from others – regardless of political or religious beliefs.
I think that’s the point, Lobo. No one seemed to care until they began targeting those with unquestioned morality.
I don’t recall the situation with much detail and internet news has come a long way since then, so it’s hard to say exactly how much press Westboro got at the time, but their protests did catch CNN’s attention.
You have to wonder: if protesting a funeral is really so despicable that we have to outlaw it completely, how have we survived this long and why didn’t we do something about it sooner?
I am a member of the Patriot Guard.
Our main mission is to attend the funeral services of fallen American heroes as invited guests of the family. Each mission we undertake has two basic objectives.
1. Show our sincere respect for our fallen heroes, their families, and their communities.
2. Shield the mourning family and their friends from interruptions created by any protestor or group of protestors.
We accomplish the latter through strictly legal and non-violent means.
To those of you who are currently serving and fighting for the freedoms of others, at home and abroad, please know that we are backing you. We honor and support you with every mission we carry out, and we are praying for a safe return home for all.
http://www.patriotguard.org/
The first person who made a comment on this apparently did not read much of the
news when they protested against Matthew Shepard. If you will check that was the
reason that several hate laws were passed. If they protest at a Gay (queer) person’s
funeral they will be hit with a hate crime. So why should they be allowed to protest
at a military funeral when they cannot protest at a gay funeral
Ummm, I’m pretty sure the “hate laws” cover violent crimes motivated by anti-gay beliefs. The first ammendment clearly protects anti-gay protests.
I think that’s the point, Lobo. No one seemed to care until they began targeting those with unquestioned morality.
Well then you’re not understanding what I said. So we’ll start with your words…I don’t recall the situation with much detail
THAT’S what I meant. It was all over the national news, but the MSM wasn’t saying much, if anything about Phelps and his ilk.
Couple that with the fact that a majority of the people were not as sympathetic to the homosexual agenda as they seem to be these days, and apparently they hadn’t succeeded in getting the MSM into their corner as opposed to now.
I have no doubt that the outrage would be expressed the same, regardless of who is the target.
So, why should people have been outraged by something that they weren’t aware of?
As for “hate crime laws”, you know as well as I do that any law that targets a class of people for special protection, is unconstitutional.
The laws must be equal for everyone in both application and protection.
how have we survived this long and why didn’t we do something about it sooner?
To answer your last question… we used to do something about it sooner. The MEN would have given this bunch, a good’ole butt stomping. But now we are a litigious society and nanny staters. We want the government to handle everything for us. It will end up costing us what rights we have left.
There will no doubt, be alot of blood shed and civil violence before that happens.
I definitely support your actions. I think you’ve chosen the proper way to deal with these radicals.
Nah, I’m not a good example. At that point in time, I wasn’t paying attention to any of the news. I vaguely recognized Shepherd’s name, but I had to look it up to know what he was talking about.
I guess I’m just not willing to place all the blame on the media. They’ll talk about whatever their polls/ratings say we want to hear. It’s not like they didn’t know about Phelps. Clearly they did.
I suppose it could have been collectively ignored due to a media-wide agenda, but Occam suggests otherwise. It seems much more likely that Phelps didn’t appear on the national radar simply because those that did hear that part of the story didn’t care enough to demand more coverage. That story never “got out of committee.”
I oppose them as well.
I can’t condone vigilante justice, unless there is a general state of anarchy. Even then, it’s morally questionable. As you said, the law must be equal for everyone and that includes due process rights.
Of course none of that is relevant, assuming we’re still talking about law-abiding demonstrators. There can be no justification for attacking a person whose done nothing but voice an unpopular opinion.
“As for “hate crime lawsâ€, you know as well as I do that any law that targets a class of people for special protection, is unconstitutional.”
That’s just not true. Not even close. What you wanted to say is “any law that targets a class of people for special protection, has to pass strict scrutiny, so must fulfill a compelling state interest, be narrowly tailored to achieve that goal, and use the least restrictive means for achieving that interest.”
See, you didn’t even get a single one of the prongs right.
And even if you’d gotten the prongs right, the courts have universally rejected your premise, “any law that targets a class of people for special protection.” The court has been unanimous in finding that the Hate Crimes laws they’ve looked at don’t do anything of the sort. They don’t punish you more because you assaulted a homosexual. In fact, you can be charged with a hate crime for assaulting a heterosexual, if your intent was to strike fear in the hearts of straights.
And to answer Dethanial, no one has ever been charged with a hate crime for protesting at a “queer person’s” funeral.
What you wanted to say is…
Don’t tell me what I wanted to say!
If that is what I wanted to say, that is what I would have said. I clearly didn’t.
Of course it does speak volumes about those who seek to control what others say and think.
That is what you get with “hate crime laws”, which is also the successful regulation of “freedom of thought” along with “freedom of conscience” which is now under attack.You remember, some of the fundamental principles of most democracies, and in the US has historically been protected by the First Amendment.
It is a direct result of “political correctness” and is directed at the liberal’s penchant for EMOTION.
The court has been
unanimoussuccessful in finding… rights that are nowhere in the Constitution and removing those that are. Most always using the 14th Amendment. HmmmI respect the Court when they get it right, NOT when they rewrite the Constitution using their ideology.