The ACLU has filed suit against a law in Michigan that makes it illegal to protest at funerals. According to the First Amendment Center website, 27 states, including Alabama, have approved such laws. They're fallout from The Rev. Fred Phelps, who's congregation at an anti-gay church in Kansas started protesting at the funerals of people who died of AIDS in the 1980's. Those protests got little notice outside the gay media, but when Phelps and kin started showing up at the funerals of the war dead from Iraq and Afghanistan there was an immediate legislative reaction in Congress and the state legislatures. The ACLU Michigan suit is on behalf of a Veteran and his wife, with no connection to the Kansas church, who protested against then President Bush at a Veteran's funeral and were arrested.
No love lost for Fred Phelps... I just think he has some very serious theological issues which I sincerely doubt he'll ever have the opportunity to discuss with any evangelically minded Christian theologian or apologist.
ReplyDeleteChrist didn't BBQ that one lost sheep, you know. Phelps doesn't preach a "come to Jesus" loving salvation, but a message of hatred which he wrongfully justifies. Yet neither does that mean that God gives some kind of invisible stamp of approval to some folks' favorite sin, either. (It doesn't matter what one's favorite sin is. Sin is sin. But the message of Christ is forgiveness, reconciliation with the Father Almighty and power over sin.)
Anyway... FP's crew came to HSV to "protest" at the funeral for one of the teens whom perished in the Lee High School bus tragedy.
Since by First Amendment law, they could not be denied a permit for public protest, the city granted them a permit with caveats. They were restricted to a very small area across the street from the church. Catch was, it was woods, and the public right-of-way was occupied by buses. They could neither see, nor were seen. If they stepped out of line, cops were there to arrest 'em. It worked quite well.
However, on this issue the ACLU catches hell either way. If they defend the constitutional rights of an unpopular group, it also affects the rights of the popular. It's a two-way street/two-edged knife, you know.
If it was wrong for Bush to restrict free speech, then it's wrong for anyone else to do so.
Phelps' hate-group and others (good, bad or indifferent) can be controlled without restricting their First Amendment guaranteed Constitutional freedoms.