Military Funeral Picketing partially banned, WBC are tools.

[Lead Herring]

I blame anyone that chooses anger and hatred, be it an action or a reaction. I do it sometimes, of course. I've never hated anyone, but I get angry here and there. I'm working on it

I understand where you're coming from with this but their actions really aren't equal. Reacting to any obstacle with anger is counter productive, but in this scenario those attending the funeral are being pushed to their limits by WBC, who are denying them their chance to mourn their loss.

 

[Varil]

Freedom of speech ends when you start impeding the lives of others. I just see this as a goverment-mandated restraining order on a band of assholes.

 

[Savryc]

So from what I've read they basically can't protest within a certain distance. Not seeing the issue really since they can still protest, nobody is stopping them protesting, they just can't do it within that certain perimeter. Seems fair enough.

Then again I live in the UK and if the internet is to be believed at all (lol no) I live in some kind of Orwellian 1984 nightmare land.

 

[Grant Stackhouse]

Seems fine to me, as long as it is a blanket restriction on all protesting at funerals and not just focused on censoring one particular group. On a related note, I've often wondered why we have Freedom of Speech but don't have a Freedom from Speech. It would be far better to defend the universal right to be silent than to defend the universal right to be wrong.

In so far as oppression being what they want in the WBC, I don't really see why we should care what they want or don't want. They call us sinners. We call them assholes. Fair exchange.

I don't know how far across America it extends, but here in Kansas, we have the Patriot Guard. They are basically a large motorcycle gang that drives out to the funerals of fallen soldiers to rev their engines loudly, in order to drown out the protesters. If you ever see about fifty or so motorcycles pass you on the highway, flying a lot of American flags, it's probably the Patriot Guard.

Lastly, those of you who suggest that we amend the First Amendment clearly don't understand the American fixation with holding things sacred. The Bill of Rights was needed to convince the individual states to join the United States in the first place. It is rare that we add anything to the Constitution. Removing one of it's original tenants would likely provoke another civil war. There are already plenty of Americans hoarding guns for the day when the government "tries to take their freedom away". Even the teapartiers, radical though they may be, consider the core tenets of the Constitution to be absolutely perfect. They just want to strip America of all laws that have been made after the Constitution was written.

 

[IntangibleMango]

Since your Constitution protects the right to free speech, i'd say they're free to say what they want to say, but it doesn't stop harassment being a crime.

You can believe what you want and present those beliefs, but if someone says "leave me alone", you do just that.

Arnt they protesting on public property? If you can stop someone from protesting on public property then you could concievbly stop anyone from protesting about anything on the grounds that it offends you.

( i apologise for anybad spelling, im typing out on my phone)

I totally agree with you there, but there's a difference between protesting and personally harassing someone in public, if it's a funeral for any person, not just military personnel, and there's someone shouting about that person going to hell, surely that's more of a personal attack on that man/woman and their friends and family than it is making a political statement?

I'm not good at verbalising this sort of thing, but if someone followed you down a public street repeatedly verbally harassing you, even after you tell them to leave you alone, surely you should be able to take action against that person, be it a restraining order or just getting the police to tell them off a bit, regardless of if it was a public space?

A confusing and difficult topic to discuss though.

 

[SonicWaffle]

Rules=/=censorship

Umm...what? Rules (hate speech laws, for instance) are used to enforce censorship.

Not being not allowed to walk into congress and yell "I WANT TO RAPE BABIES AND KILL NIGGERS!" isn't censorship.

Yes. Yes it is. It may be censorship of which we approve, enforced for the good of everyone, but according to the definition of censorship that is still censorship. Read the definition again;

Censorship is the suppression of speech or other public communication which may be considered objectionable, harmful, sensitive, or inconvenient as determined by a government, media outlet, or other controlling body

Why can't you walk into congress and scream "I WANT TO RAPE BABIES AND KILL NIGGERS!"? Because the government has decided that your speech is both objectionable and harmful. They have censored you on those grounds. To reiterate, that is not a bad thing. Censorship is not inherently bad.

Allowing anyone to walk into congress and yell anything except *insert somethng* would be censorship.

Yes, that would be censorship too. Any attempt to suppress speech is censorship.

Which is why a permission is usually required to hold a demonstration.

I'm not sure what permission has to do with the issue. You can't get permission for a demonstration and then start screaming "I WANT TO RAPE BABIES AND KILL NIGGERS!", because you can't get around such censorship simply by claiming you have permission to protest.

Censorship is about content, not form.

And in the examples you gave, it was the content that was the issue. You can yell it or put it on a poster or get your message accross through interpretive dance, but if the message you're trying to give was about rape threats and racist violence, you're still going to be censored.

 

[SonicWaffle]

I don't know what the WBC stand for really

Hating on the gays, the Jews, pretty much anyone either secular or religious who isn't a part of their church. Not their own hatred, of course; they're just God's messengers. God hates seemingly everyone except about 30 people with signs and an attitude problem.

Well judging from the many articles I've read, I'd say most likely those are correct assumptions. It's sad that they're so misguided, God doesn't hate anyone or anything but sin. Sticking with this post I still say no matter the belief it just seems disrespectful to protest at a man's funeral, especially someone who served our country.

It's certainly disrespectful, and that's why they do it. They want attention. They want to do shocking and disgraceful things so that everyone will pay attention to them and hear their message. Then at least they can (in their messed up minds) say "At least you were warned! You're going to hell for being a ******, but we tried to help you and you didn't listen!"

The sad thing is by discussing this we're giving them exactly what they want, so at this point I'm moving on.

Fair enough, but ignoring the problem doesn't make it go away. They want attention, they feel gratified and validated by the attention, but even if you don't pay attention to them they'll keep doing it. As I said above, I think the best way to stop them is for Christians like themselves to stand between them and their victims. Offer no resistance, just be ambassadors for their faith and take the abuse that was meant for someone else. If, by doing so, the seed of doubt is planted in the heads of the younger members of the church then within a few decades there won't be a Westboro Baptist Church.

 

[Mr Cwtchy]

All I can say is I'm pretty fucking glad we stopped them coming into the UK.

Far as I'm concerned, picketing funerals is harassment, and in most developed countries that is a crime. I don't know how it works in the US however, but judging by the extremely overused Voltaire quote(which can fuck off by the way), I feel they(at the risk of generalising) care a little bit too much about the FOS, particularly when in the process it negatively impacts others.

 

[SonicWaffle]

Freedom of speech ends when you start impeding the lives of others. I just see this as a goverment-mandated restraining order on a band of assholes.

Should I not be free to say that evolution is true, lest I impede the lives of creationists? It might challenge their beliefs or confuse their children, and I doubt they want that.

 

[cwmdulais]

Since your Constitution protects the right to free speech, i'd say they're free to say what they want to say, but it doesn't stop harassment being a crime.

You can believe what you want and present those beliefs, but if someone says "leave me alone", you do just that.

Arnt they protesting on public property? If you can stop someone from protesting on public property then you could concievbly stop anyone from protesting about anything on the grounds that it offends you.

( i apologise for anybad spelling, im typing out on my phone)

I totally agree with you there, but there's a difference between protesting and personally harassing someone in public, if it's a funeral for any person, not just military personnel, and there's someone shouting about that person going to hell, surely that's more of a personal attack on that man/woman and their friends and family than it is making a political statement?

I'm not good at verbalising this sort of thing, but if someone followed you down a public street repeatedly verbally harassing you, even after you tell them to leave you alone, surely you should be able to take action against that person, be it a restraining order or just getting the police to tell them off a bit, regardless of if it was a public space?

A confusing and difficult topic to discuss though.

Ahh i see what you mean now, and thats a very good point i must admit, but im not sure how you would be able to legally prove that WBC is protesting without political content, (protesting while devoid of logic would be a lot easyer to prove)

(again i apologise for any atrocious spelling on account of my phone)

 

[90sgamer]

We should protect the first amendment right at all costs, even if it costs the feelings of soldiers and the family of the fallen. Every soldier who joins the military knows his* risks: death, mayhem, and...now... being picketed after you die. In the grand scheme of things, being picketed is much less bad than dying. We should protect it even if it works to the advantage of an evil group such as the WBC.

The fact is, protesting soldier's involvement is a right. The WBC is protesting because they are a money making organization. This is how they make loads of money. They protect themselves by doing everything by the book. They get a permit from the city and protest legally. Their cause is not a just one; however, I can imagine just causes which may lead to people protesting fallen soldiers. For example: an incredibly unjust war that is even more obviously unjust than the Iraq war. In an unjust war it could be argued that soldiers are just paid murderers and it would be the ethical duty of all soldiers to refuse to fight.

The bottom line is that this legislation would make this example of protest less effective. It attempts to shuffle the protesters a convenient distance away. They are no longer heard, in your face, and in some cases visible. Those things are the only reason why protesting ever works and if we as American demonstrate that we are OK with this then I foresee more special exceptions in the future for the rich and for politician's own going-ons.

*(and her, wherever it's applicable)

 

[Kargathia]

People couldn?t shut them up by using the courts so a law was passed.

Do keep in mind that courts do nothing more than uphold existing laws. It's not their job to persecute people who have found a loophole - and this is an example of a loophole in the law being closed.

Laws can and should change all the time, based on the changes in the society they are meant to protect. It's already quite idiotic - and completely contrary to the wishes of the ones who drafted it - that your constitution hasn't had an update in the last 150 years, even though parts of it are hopelessly outdated.

Whether it should be changed to prohibit insulting rallies at burials is up for discussion - not based on what an old piece on paper says, but on what we feel our laws should be, as the WBC is pretty much the first one ever to picket funerals with hate speech.

 

[Anti Nudist Cupcake]

YES THEY SHOULD CHANGE THE DAMN THING

Your first amendment really isn't all it is cut out to be. It lets people do psychological harm to the grievers of dead soldiers. You Americans have been taught to cling and cherish the term "Freedom of speech" so much that you think that the only possible way to be able to live freely is by letting evil people desecrate your dead, IT DOESN'T HAVE TO BE THAT WAY. Sacrificing the freedom to rally at funerals to call dead family members of other people FAGGOTS won't take away YOUR right, the normal good-hearted citizen, to voice your opinion on how your government runs things. It will take away the right of an entire group of strangers coming together to call your dead brother a ****** at his funeral.

No it isn't a slippery slope. Just because the WBC won't be allowed to call a man that died protecting his country and family a faggoty homosexual doesn't mean that you can no longer have an opinion and speak it. MY country is proof of that. Is having hate speech legal truly so crucial to your own freedom? Will you never be able to voice your words without doing so hatefully? Can you really NOT live without it?

Laws against hate speech isn't going to guarantee your country getting a thought-police, wake up and stop letting fear of "but maybe then..." blind your judgement. The point of free speech was to combat evil, IE the evil of oppression against good-willed words such as speaking out against an unjust ruler. Now that evil rises again it is allowed to exist because you cannot distinguish right from wrong. Great job.

The problem is that the whole purpose of freedom of speech isn't to protect well liked and popular positions, but quite the opposite. If it doesn't protect people holding positions you find vile, it doesn't protect *anyone* because you never know what the next person in line is going to have a problem with, or how such a thing will be extended.

In the US in particular, there's plenty of evidence of "feature creep" in laws, and there's nothing that would suggest that banning some speech that isn't an immediate provocation of danger or panic without good reason (yelling fire in a theater, organizing a lynch mob, that kind of thing) wouldn't suffer the same fate.

We're not talking about protecting the position of people who are against abortion and silencing people who are for it. All of what the WBC says is nothing more than insults and hate speech, there are countries where this is illegal and we get along fine without our "freedom" being compromised.

I think it is sad that people are completely inept at making laws based on distinguishing what is right and wrong. Can people not clearly see how abusing a family like this is clearly wrong? Can people not see how this should not be allowed? Will people REALLY be so morally blind in the future that they cannot distinguish silencing verbal abuse from silencing voicing an opinion?

 

[IntangibleMango]

Since your Constitution protects the right to free speech, i'd say they're free to say what they want to say, but it doesn't stop harassment being a crime.

You can believe what you want and present those beliefs, but if someone says "leave me alone", you do just that.

Arnt they protesting on public property? If you can stop someone from protesting on public property then you could concievbly stop anyone from protesting about anything on the grounds that it offends you.

( i apologise for anybad spelling, im typing out on my phone)

I totally agree with you there, but there's a difference between protesting and personally harassing someone in public, if it's a funeral for any person, not just military personnel, and there's someone shouting about that person going to hell, surely that's more of a personal attack on that man/woman and their friends and family than it is making a political statement?

I'm not good at verbalising this sort of thing, but if someone followed you down a public street repeatedly verbally harassing you, even after you tell them to leave you alone, surely you should be able to take action against that person, be it a restraining order or just getting the police to tell them off a bit, regardless of if it was a public space?

A confusing and difficult topic to discuss though.

Ahh i see what you mean now, and thats a very good point i must admit, but im not sure how you would be able to legally prove that WBC is protesting without political content, (protesting while devoid of logic would be a lot easyer to prove)

(again i apologise for any atrocious spelling on account of my phone)

I don't think it's so much as "How can we stop them protesting?" but more "How can we let them make their point, through mutual respect and not hindering free speech?", moving them further away to 300ft or whatever it was in my opinion was the right thing to do, as it means they don't personally harass the soldier or the family, but instead make their actual statement - if of course that actually makes any sense.

 

[Antari]

WBC can feel they are protected, but they are pissing off people with guns, the first amendment isn't bulletproof. Its only a matter of time until they get themselves killed. They are fucking with people's most basic instincts.

 

[Toaster Hunter]

This isn't a restriction of freedom of speech. The First Amendment states that someone cannot be prosecuted or arrested for the content of the speech. They can say whatever they want, just somewhere else. Harassment and disturbing the peace are both illegal, something that these protesters break constantly. This isn't First Amendment restriction, its a zoning law.

 

[twohundredpercent]

your constitution hasn't had an update in the last 150 years, even though parts of it are hopelessly outdated.

Ahahahahahaha.

Also some guy should rape Fred Phelps. I think that would be rad.