From TheKansan.com:
The American Civil Liberties Union filed a federal lawsuit Monday, challenging a new Kentucky law that limits protests at funerals.
Lili S. Lutgens, an attorney for the ACLU in Louisville, said a portion of the law is overly broad in the limitations it places on freedom of speech and on freedom of expression.
“The language is so broad that two people holding a conversation on a sidewalk, if there’s a funeral going on the funeral home, then they’d be in violation,” Lutgens said. “Somebody who was whistling as they walked down the sidewalk, if a funeral was in earshot, then they would also be in violation.”
The General Assembly passed the law this year in an attempt to prevent disruptions at military funeral funerals. The law was aimed at members of the Westboro Baptist Church of Topeka, Kan., who have toured the country protesting military funerals. The church members see the soldiers’ deaths as a sign of God punishing America for tolerating homosexuality.
The law applies to applies to funerals, memorial services and burials.
Protesters within 300 feet of such services would be guilty of first-degree disorderly conduct, punishable by up to a year in jail. The bill also would prevent protesters from using bullhorns to try to disrupt the services.
[…]
At their protests, members of the Kansas group carry such signs as “Thank God for IEDs,” the improvised explosive devices used by insurgents in Iraq.
Writes John Stephenson at Stop the ACLU:
Once again the ACLU are blind to good common sense and decency in favor of some absolutist view on free speech. The laws being presented are not infringing upon their right to expression. They can go 500 to 1,000 feet away and protest all they want. What this legislation is attempting to do is no different than laws that protect political figures from protesters with reasonable buffer zones. It is also odd that the ACLU have fought on the opposite side when those being protested against were abortion clinics. However it isn’t suprising, as we see more and more everyday, that the ACLU are selective in what kind of messages they protect as free speech, and which ones they either ignore or downright fight against.
Stephenson has a good point about the ACLU’s selective approval of these various buffer zones and their impact on speech and assembly freedoms—after all, one can make a reasonable case that if you are going to argue, as the ACLU has, that a buffer zone protects those seeking legal abortions (or simply visiting Planned Parenthood, in some cases) from harassment, the same argument should apply to those who are burying family members—but that being said, there could be something to the ACLU’s concern here if in fact the legislation doesn’t speak specifically to “protests” (rather than, say, disruptions or something similar, which language could, potentially, infringe on rights of assembly and speech).
Like most people who don’t place their “right” to insinuate political expression into every situation above simple common decency—which necessarily includes consideration for families and friends of fallen soldiers in their times of grief and mourning— I find the protesting of funerals to be among the most vile political acts imaginable. Not only is it an invasion of privacy, but it is also, from my perspective, an incitement to violence and retaliation—and were I on the jury, I’d be hard pressed not to nullify any assault case brought against a family member or friend of the deceased who beat off a “protester” with the business end of a shovel. Which is why if the legislation, as written, is in fact overbroad (I haven’t yet read it), it should be relatively easy to tighten up.
But if the language already specifies a prohibition on “protests” (and defines, narrowly, what constitutes a protest for the purposes of funerals / memorial services)—than the ACLU’s arguments are risible and should be greeted by the judge with strongly worded disdain, and my circumspection is moot.
It is unfortunate that the ACLU has so aligned itself with partisan political causes that nearly all of its legal arguments are now met with (understandable) suspicion by those who hold competing policy ideas. Because in theory, the ACLU serves an important function—namely, preventing populist impulses from making their way into law at the expense of Constitutional protections.
****
See also, Jeff Quinton, Center for Sanity, The Sandbox, Radaractive, and Blue Star Chronicles.
C’mon Jeff, the ACLU simply has recognized the “rights” of protesters of every stripe that choose to demomize our military personnel, especially those that have given their “last full measure” for the defense and security of the US, more than outweighs any silly “rights” that those dead servicepeople and their families have to bury their loved one’s with respect and honor.
What don’t you get?
And of course, the ACLU doesn’t recognize the “rights” of anybody that thinks snuffing innocent, unborn children is innapropriate, to the point of inserting a scapel or scissors into the crowning skull of a baby. Cause, well, you know, a “woman’s right to choose” and the “mother’s health” and all that.
Absolutely.
This doesn’t surprise me in the least. We’re talking about the same group that defends NAMBLA’s right to propogate the sodomizing of young boys.
It fits their M.O.
StoptheAclu thinks that the overbreadth argument is “ridiculous.” Given their extensive history of understanding legal issues, we really ought to defer to their expert opinion.
It seems there is such a thing as speech that is offensive enough. Which never was in doubt. Good reason not to have a funeral on a campus—it might endanger the freedom of the liberal arts education.
But I do like your privacy argument.
Aren’t funerals private affairs? The plot is privately owned, the services are rendered by privately owned mortuaries and/or a church. How is a protest not criminal trespass, at a minimum?
Obligatory ignore the Typing Telephone Pole. He’s trying for the World’s-Most-Fucking-Stupidest-Commenter for two years in a row with a hell of a lead. Replying to his post will only set you up in violation of RICO statuetes* for conspiracy to defraud the judging panel.
We need competition, people.
*whatever…
The ACLU is against anything that is an American tradition. Wake up folks, identify these people and put them out of business. They are being funded by someone you know, or by foreign interest and the government should be tracking that.
The ACLU argues that the law reaches people on sidewalks and other public fora. From the various reports I’ve seen of the westboro freaks, they don’t trespass. They just act like bigoted misguided theocratic cretins.
V,
Well done. It’s little things like this that make this website a more pleasant place to visit.
Thanks.
We can settle this easily enough without the ACLU, lawyers, or the legislature.
The next time these assholes protest at a soldier’s funeral, friends and family of the deceased should simply beat the living shit out of them.
Aggravated assault, big whoop, a little community service, so what.
Has the ACLU argued for our civil right to draw Mohammad in a cartoon?
That doesn’t help Dad. If i got killed overseas, I wouldn’t want my friends and relatives fighting anyone. Refine the law to where it protects mourners – then enforce it.
Searching their website for “mohammed cartoon” and sorting by date gives some hints.
Major John,
Recommendation respectfully withdrawn.
You’re right, of course, but I really would like to … Never mind.
I gave up on the ACLU as being a dedicated, first-class civil liberties organisation when I bothered to look and found their position on the Second Amendment.
If personal armament isn’t a civil liberty, I have no interest in the organisation’s views on civil liberties. (Let alone their risible “scholarship” on the position of the Amendment as an individual rather than collective right.
Any civil liberties organisation telling me gun registration is just like car registration is either deeply incompetent or simply lying to me. I can’t think of a third interpretation.)
Needless to say, despite my love for civil liberties, free speech, and the Constitution, the ACLU doesn’t get a penny from me.
“The laws being presented are not infringing upon their right to expression. They can go 500 to 1,000 feet away and protest all they want.”
Or better yet, just go to another country. And yhy not the moon?
Yeah, pre-approved “free speach zones” are SO conservative.
At what point did Jeff even remotely imply that? I must have missed it.
Does that mean that you support the right to protest (up close) a military funeral? If so, pack up your crate of Poptarts, hop on your big-wheel, and peddle your skanky-little-troll-ass back home.
Jackass
How about taking a boat ride there? Over the river Styx.
i cant even speel free speach, but I no how 2 do it
I’ll second that emotion.
First of all, I hope that if this goes to the Supreme Court, that they have the sense of irony to pull case law from ACLU victories about the proximity of protesters at abortion clinics to support their position. That would be very sweet.
Second, I have two boys in the Marines. If, God forbid, one of them was killed in the war, I would make sure these weanies were aware of it (it makes for good publicity that the Governor of Oregon attends every military funeral in the state). I would also put a notice in the papers inviting every veteran in the area to come and provide a buffer so I don’t have to watch all the rednecks and bikers among them beating the shit out of the protesters.
Fortunately, I live in a small enough town that most people would veer their cars onto the sidewalks if they saw this kind of protest going on, thus mitigating the problem somewhat.
So, an actual and problematic issue should not be resolved because of an entirely hypothetical situation that may or may not come about?
The lawmakers are right. These protests are potential dangers to the peace. The protesters get as much out of this as mourners. The mourners can mourn in private without an additional emotional burden, and the protesters remain physically whole and alive.
No it should be resolved. But right.
Fred Phelps. Proud Democrat. Remember that.
Let it be known. If a family member of mine were to die in Iraq…and you were to protest at the funeral…and if you were to wave a sign that said “Thank God for IED’s”…I don’t care if you were 100 feet or 100 miles away…I would find you and kill you. I’m sure the “temporary insanity” defence would work nicely.
Fred Phelps and his family are not a religious group, they are not protesters and they not representing anyone except themselves.
They are grifters. They are running a scam.
Their intent in attending these funerals is to provoke a reaction, hopefully resulting in some kind of contact. They then file a civil suit claiming damages and collect.
They’ve been doing it for years. Before the military funerals it was AIDs sufferers. It doesn’t matter, they’re just doing whatever it takes to get that reaction, and cash in on it.
How could anyone think otherwise? He’s a nutcase theocratic bigot!
The ACLU’s reasoning on allowing protests for one kind of death—death in military action, and refusing to allow protests for another kind of death—abortion, is a surreal, illogical pretzel.
Don’t you wonder what circle of Dante’s Inferno they’re going to end up in?
So’s the equation of a burial with a medical procedure. But that doesn’t stop us.
The ACLU. your tax dollars at work. go to stoptheACLU.com/
The ACLU. Your tax dollars at work. Check out stoptheACLU.com/