Remember That Protesting @ Funeral Thread A Few Weeks Back...

US President George W Bush has given his backing to a law prohibiting anti gay protests at military funerals.

His signature follows bills in Kentucky and Ohio regulating funeral protests in response to the Westboro Baptist Church of Topeka, after they said American military deaths are God's retribution for tolerance of gay people.

Westboro Baptist Church’s Margie Phelps said: "America is doomed.

"President Bush doesn't have the power to stop the wrath of God or this message."

Reverend Fred Phelps, leader of the church,, has pledged a legal challenge to the law, he is supported by The American Civil Liberties Union who claim the law limits free speech.

The law, which coincided with Memorial Day yesterday in America, limits protests to an hour before and after the service and at least 300ft away from mourners

http://www.pinknews.co.uk/news/articles/2005-1598.html

Hehe well it looks like Bush is now going to lose a lot of the 'religious' voters because of this although, i have to say, this is definately one of his better decisions :)

Regards,

Lee

Well, questionable semantics of the law and free speech aside, on a personal level, I'm certainly glad that Bush wised up in THIS case.

Texas just very quickly passed this same law in a special legislative session last month.

Honestly, I'm not convinced that mandated protest free zones at military funerals warrants a federal criminal offense.

Steve

I don't think this law will pass constitutional muster--it will be struck down as too restrictive.

That is just my opinion

as a former elected prosecutor, member of the board of directors of the arizona civil liberties union, and member of the ACLU legal panel in arizona :honest:

you might hate the message the law is trying to stamp out but this law violates first amendment rights to free speech.

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Originally Posted by chadknowslaw

you might hate the message the law is trying to stamp out but this law violates first amendment rights to free speech.

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There should be subset of laws... the Law of Ethics and Morals. Haha. Too bad nobody in this country can agree upon what good ethics and morals are. :)

Once you draw the line of what is ethical and what is not you cannot help but have problems. Making a LAW, so that breaking that LAW puts you in jail is exactly what laws about morals and ethics do. So, should we let the majority decide what is moral, then criminally charge those people that act immorally? Two adult men having consensual vanilla sex was one of those prohibitions and otherwise law abiding men went to jail for having sex in the privacy of their own homes. After the Lawrence v. Texas decision in 2003, our Supreme Court finally ruled that private, consensual sex by adults was not something that could be subject to criminal law. Deciding what speech is moral is very similar--once that line is drawn in the sand, the speech on the other side that we don't like becomes a criminal act. In a free society, tolerating unpopular speech is a necessity. If today we criminalize unpopular speech, then tomorrow what you say could become unpopular and subject you to jail for speaking your mind. Once a line is drawn for speech that is moral and speech that is immoral, a whole bunch of people will want it re-drawn to their tastes, so a line cannot be drawn around the content of the message no matter how repulsive.

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Originally Posted by chadknowslaw

Once you draw the line of what is ethical and what is not you cannot help but have problems. Making a LAW, so that breaking that LAW puts you in jail is exactly what laws about morals and ethics do. So, should we let the majority decide what is moral, then criminally charge those people that act immorally? Two adult men having consensual vanilla sex was one of those prohibitions and otherwise law abiding men went to jail for having sex in the privacy of their own homes. After the Lawrence v. Texas decision in 2003, our Supreme Court finally ruled that private, consensual sex by adults was not something that could be subject to criminal law. Deciding what speech is moral is very similar--once that line is drawn in the sand, the speech on the other side that we don't like becomes a criminal act. In a free society, tolerating unpopular speech is a necessity. If today we criminalize unpopular speech, then tomorrow what you say could become unpopular and subject you to jail for speaking your mind. Once a line is drawn for speech that is moral and speech that is immoral, a whole bunch of people will want it re-drawn to their tastes, so a line cannot be drawn around the content of the message no matter how repulsive.

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Obviously you're right, Chad. I just wish that people could agree upon certain ethics of decency in their behavior. But that's just asking too much of the world, huh? :)

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Originally Posted by XXXWriterDude

Obviously you're right, Chad. I just wish that people could agree upon certain ethics of decency in their behavior. But that's just asking too much of the world, huh? :)

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Actually, I'm not really certain that it would be that difficult to *agree on* ... if people simply treated everyone the way they would like to be treated if their roles were reversed, then that would pretty much eliminate all of the problems. The issue is, of course, very, very few people (myself included) have the discipline to always treat everyone that way... too much selfishness, misdirected anger, etc.