Westboro Baprist Church - again ....

http://www.wsaz.com/news/headlines/117868484.html

Protesting the funeral of a soldier someone spit tobacco juice on one of the Church protestors. He was found not guilty of assault.

They also had signs of "God hates coal miners"; the spitter is the son of one of the deceased coal miners, also an Iraqi veteran.

Freedom of speech my ass.

No jury in that state would convict him.

He knew it.

I could have saved them some time. When we get spit on it is generally considered harrassment

I've said it once, I'll say it again, what Westboro does is not freedom of speech, it's harassment. The people who are unfortunately laying their son/daughter/brother/sister/father/mother to rest do not deserve these shiny happy people in the background chanting "THEY DIED BECAUSE GOD HATES FAGS".

If somebody walked into a funeral of someone you loved and some jackwad walks in and starts saying that it was good they died because god hates gay people, what doesn't give you the right to lay them out, then call the cops, and have them sent to jail overnight?

I'm just wondering how long it will take before there are some serious consequences towards Westfield at one of these funerals? Do they warn the police ahead of time so they'll be there to protect them?

SyntheticBlinkerFluid wrote: what doesn't give you the right to lay them out, then call the cops, and have them sent to jail overnight?

The simple fact that assaulting another human is not a right, whereas the freedom to express one's self is.

I'm convinced that the whole point of the WBC is to convince people to give up their 1st Ammendment rights. They show the worst of what free speech can be used for in order to get people emotional and willing to do whatever is "necessary" to make them go away.

No, the Westies make serious cash of trolling for lawsuits. Like this spitter above, for example. Most of the time whomever assaults a Westie will end up in court paying out to settle the case. They don't care who they hate, as long as they can rile up the audience enough to get a couple of assault.

there doing this to be in the news, Years ago when we didn't have 24 news on three different channels this assHat was happy preaching to just handful of followers. Now the we have so many media out lets, one of them thought that this guy was worth waisting some air time on.

DoctorBlade wrote: No, the Westies make serious cash of trolling for lawsuits..... .

Like a guy whose son was killed in Iraq and they protested his funeral. He sued the church; lost because of the first amendment and had to pay their court costs.

I'll keep myself from posting what I'd like to do so if it ever happens they won't think I did it. Not that anyone would break their back investigating that case.

I've said it once, and I'll say it again: these guys need to show up and drive right through that crowd of irreverent idiots.

I served in a USMC reserve unit in Topeka KS.. It was way to common to see Phelp's group at about every funeral we worked.. Protesting WW2 vets even..

We had a couple run in's, but gave them nothing...

What they do is NOT FREE speech..

(Oh... FYI... and the SOB is a democrat thru and thru )

I know several of you-all semi-condone what these shiny happy people do ... ah-la "the free speech" thing.... but there is a point where free speech stops and harassment starts... these jerkwads have gone way beyond that point

keep in mind not every thing is covered by the 1st amendment... the example of yelling "fire" in a crowded theater isn't acceptable ...

I wonder if I can use my freedom of speech to demonstrate against them by setting them on fire. "Sorry officer, I was excercising my right to free speech, and I wanted to speak about them being on fire"

wbjones wrote: I know several of you-all semi-condone what these shiny happy people do ... ah-la "the free speech" thing.... but there is a point where free speech stops and harassment starts... these jerkwads have gone way beyond that point keep in mind not every thing is covered by the 1st amendment... the example of yelling "fire" in a crowded theater isn't acceptable ...

These people [use your own adverb if you like] have the blessing of the Supreme Court and they are not yelling fire in a crowded theatre.

Like I said before, I can't wait for the Reverend to get caught in a compromising situation with an altar boy or the church Secretary. What they do is not illegal. Unethical? Immoral? Impolite? Of course!

I still don't get the connection between dead soldiers or dead coal miners to gay people.

Sometimes I'm just a little thicker than most.

Dan

wbjones wrote: I know several of you-all semi-condone what these shiny happy people do ... ah-la "the free speech" thing.... but there is a point where free speech stops and harassment starts... these jerkwads have gone way beyond that point keep in mind not every thing is covered by the 1st amendment... the example of yelling "fire" in a crowded theater isn't acceptable ...

My understanding is that it's not covered free speech if it creates an imminent danger or it's considered a hate crime.

However, where's the line? If you're given the power to create a peice of legislation to rectify the situation created by these shiny bastards, what would you do?

Personally, I'd expand/change the definition of a hate crime such that it either included sexual orientation and employment, or so that it was defined based on any act designed to inflict fear in any easily-definable subset of the population ("women", "gays", "soldiers", "hispanics", "non-hybrid car owners", "roller-derby girls", "bus drivers", etc).

ronholm wrote: (Oh... FYI... and the SOB is a democrat thru and thru )

Figures. You know how those Democrats are.

As for "semi-condone," many people do. I found this group who stated it pretty well.

http://www.libertarianrepublican.net/2011/03/westboro-shades-of-nazis-vs-skokie.html

I have to agree with them on that. Trouble with making stuff illegal is it makes it too easy for those laws to be used other than how they were intended. Say we make a law outlawing protests which may cause emotional harm to those who have served or families of those who have served our coutry. Sounds like a good idea, doesn't it? But what do we do when President Blah Blah down the road decides that he is serving our country and doesn't much like the army of protestors outside the White House. He send the National Guard in to get rid of them using this law as his defense.

Okay, probably a poor example, but you get the idea. What I'd really like to see is a group with a lot of free time equally commited to counter protest this gang. If well trained, they could be pretty effective at marginalizing them.

914Driver wrote: Like I said before, I can't wait for the Reverend to get caught in a compromising situation with an altar boy or the church Secretary.

Oooooooooh.... you mean Reverend Phelps. When I first read that I was really concerned what I had said to piss you off so much! Hahahaha

There's something frighteningly dysfunctional about those people. It's time they were stopped.

Lesley wrote: There's something frighteningly dysfunctional about those people. It's time they were stopped.

How?

Vietnam Veterans of America and I believe the Hell's Angels (maybe some other club) stepped up and said they would maintain a perimeter.

That just keeps them at a distance.

ReverendDexter wrote: Personally, I'd expand/change the definition of a hate crime such that it either included sexual orientation and employment, or so that it was defined based on any act designed to inflict fear in *any* easily-definable subset of the population ("women", "gays", "soldiers", "hispanics", "non-hybrid car owners", "roller-derby girls", "bus drivers", etc).

I definitely can't see anyway in which a law like this could be misused.

Nope, not one.

You guys should watch "The most hated family in america" its a documentary by someone on the BBC who spent a while with them. I watched it yesterday and the whole time I just kept getting more and more angry. They seem pretty cult-ish. But it seems they've recognized this early on, and refrained from creating somewhat of a "commune".

Personally, I'd expand/change the definition of a hate crime such that it either included sexual orientation and employment, or so that it was defined based on any act designed to inflict fear in *any* easily-definable subset of the population ("women", "gays", "soldiers", "hispanics", "non-hybrid car owners", "roller-derby girls", "bus drivers", etc).

The problem with hate crime legislation is that it winds up being ridiculously vague and basically turns anyone who disagrees with you into someone producing "hate speech". It effectively kills the 1st amendment.

Take, for example, abortion. The moment a law like that gets passed, one or both sides will file a lawsuit the moment any sort of conflict occurs, saying the other side is committing a hate crime. In some cases, you'll even see attempts to eradicate protesters who are doing absolutely nothing hateful, because to the other side, any opposition is "hate".

My solution? Aim just a little lower men...

The best thing to do with these nimrods is ignore them. When they're no longer getting headlines & attention they'll crawl back under their rocks & not be heard from again.