Court backs church’s stay on picketing law

[cec]

Court backs church’s stay on picketing law




By David Twiddy - The Associated Press
Posted : Thursday Dec 6, 2007 20:44:46 EST

KANSAS CITY, Mo. — A federal appeals court said Thursday that a Missouri law limiting protests near funerals should have been put on hold while a judge determines whether it’s constitutional.
The 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in St. Louis threw out a district court judge’s decision denying the request for a temporary injunction of the law from a Kansas church that regularly protests at service members’ funerals.
Missouri legislators passed the law last year in response to pickets of service members’ funerals by members of Westboro Baptist Church. The Topeka, Kan., church claims God allows troops to be killed as punishment on the nation for tolerating homosexuality.
Church member Shirley Phelps-Roper filed suit in July 2006, seeking to have the statute declared an unconstitutional infringement on her First Amendment right of free speech. She also sought preliminary and permanent injunctions barring Gov. Matt Blunt from enforcing the law.
U.S. District Judge Fernando Gaitan said Phelps-Roper had failed to show that she had a strong probability of winning the overall lawsuit and that she would be irreparably harmed if the protest ban continues to be enforced.
He also said that while the law imposes a buffer of time and space between Phelps-Roper and funeral mourners, she has not been completely deprived of public venues for trying to persuade Americans of a connection between service members’ deaths and homosexuality.
Missouri’s law bans picketing and protests “in front of or about” any location where a funeral is held from an hour before the funeral begins until an hour after it ends. Several other states and the federal government have adopted similar restrictions in response to the protests by members of Phelps-Roper’s church.
The appeals court, which also repeatedly said it wasn’t ruling on the Missouri law’s constitutionality, said Phelps-Roper had raised enough questions about the law to make an injunction necessary.
For example, it noted past rulings saying the government had no compelling interest in protecting individuals from unwanted speech outside their homes and that the law appeared to create “floating” buffer zones, which didn’t adequately explain to protesters when and where they could protest.
The three-judge panel also disagreed that the law didn’t necessarily deprive the protesters of a venue for their opinions.
“Phelps-Roper presents a viable argument that those who protest or picket at or near a military funeral wish to reach an audience which can only be addressed at such occasion and to convey to and through such an audience a particular message,” the court wrote.
Phelps-Roper called the panel’s decision “awesome.”
“It shows you that it doesn’t matter how many soldiers we have on foreign soil fighting for our rights that if we don’t have some people on our own soil fighting, we don’t have a First Amendment,” she said. “When you see your organic law eroding, history tells you that your destruction is on the way.”
Meanwhile, the Kansas Supreme Court was asked Thursday to strike down a section of that state’s funeral picketing law. State Solicitor General Stephen McAllister told the justices that a requirement that the law first be declared constitutional by a federal or state court before it could be enforced was an illegal obstacle.



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[redtanker]

I will be the first in line to ***** about some one stepping on our right to free speach..... but come on! when someone can say " God allows troops to be killed as punishment on the nation for tolerating homosexuality" they are...well.... stupid, How could you say that and think its actually a possiblity... or even that this kinda thing is going to make others believe in your cause?

[Woodmonkey]

They're not losing their free speech by not being allowed to cause even more pain for grieving families. They can spew their hatred from a little further away.

[cec]

Originally Posted by Woodmonkey

They're not losing their free speech by not being allowed to cause even more pain for grieving families. They can spew their hatred from a little further away.

Like Fort Riley's impact area. That's far enough for me.

[leobold1]

I've never publicly spoken on my desire to see anyone killed in a slow, tortured way.

Therefore, my post stops here. And my record stays intact.

[las47032]

What about the rights of the fallen and their families?

Shirley Phelps Roper and her hideous, phony, hypocrite, santicimonious religious cult are taking advantage of the freedom of speech. Yet, what they say and do a soldier's funerals is hate speech!

May the Patriot Riders be present at military funerals revving up their motorcycles drowning out the Phelps protesters.