Honoring America's Veterans Act signed...

[TLK Valentine]

The Honoring America’s Veterans and Caring for Camp Lejeune Families Act of 2012 (H.R. 1627) is a comprehensive, bipartisan, bicameral legislative package to provide for the needs of veterans, their families, and survivors through improved healthcare, housing, education, and memorial services. Designed to meet the challenges veterans face today, H.R. 1627 also expands the accountability and transparency of the Department of Veterans Affairs, ensuring VA is responsible to those it serves—America’s veterans.

Full text of the Act here: The Honoring America’s Veterans and Caring for Camp Lejeune Families Act of 2012 | House Committee on Veterans' Affairs


There's even a jab at the Westboro Baptist Church:

Honoring the Fallen

While ensuring the freedom to protest, but protecting the rights and the honor of the families of the fallen, those wishing to protest military funerals, or at national cemeteries, shall be subject to restrictions, and if violated, protesters shall be punished by criminal or civil action.

Apparently, those restrictions include staying at least 300 feet away, and not being allowed to protest two hours before or after a funeral.

Thoughts?

 

[Amber Bird]

I know a great many Veterans and active duty military. Honoring those who promise to die for us is simply patriotic. As corny as that may sound.

As for Westboro, it's about time someone drafted a bill that would curb their trespass, hate speech and willful intent to incite violence. Absolutely they have their right to free speech. However, we all know there are limits to that freedom as deemed within guidelines relating to when and where speech of a certain kind may be exercised.
The old familiar, one can not scream "FIRE!" in a crowded theater just because they feel like screaming fire.

I think departed military personnel have every right to be free from hate filled words surrounding the ceremony dedicated to their loss, when now living to watch TV coverage of Westboro can presuppose what their loved one's may have to endure should they die in combat.
And I think those grieving loved ones, friends and fellow soldiers who come to say their goodbyes to the departed, have every right to do so in the sacred atmosphere of ceremony, wherein all that stands to be heard if anything at all, is the soft weeping and comforting words of the broken hearted who try to make sense of making it through.

They should never ever have had to suffer being spit upon, called horrific names, threatened, insulted, nor should their loved one have been slurred in all manner of ways including signs that read: God loves dead soldiers!

Westboro may call themselves a church, wherein the majority of parishioners are the Phelps clan however, if nothing else they serve as an example of what extremist religious zealotry looks like when unchained hate fosters a resolve to act in order to please their particular ideal of a God that would approve.
And old Fred from his pulpit, when he's not updating the Westboro website with their scheduled future appearances at a funeral "near you", waves his dog eared Bible around like a hammer hefted in the name of Christian values and believes himself Heaven bound for all his trouble.

Faith, can be a very dangerous incentive for a real life.

 

[TerranceL]

Apparently, those restrictions include staying at least 300 feet away, and not being allowed to protest two hours before or after a funeral.

Thoughts?

The human scum that are the phelps will try to get it overturned.

 

[TLK Valentine]

The human scum that are the phelps will try to get it overturned.

And it's possible that they might, if they can prove that the restrictions are too excessive, violating their first amendment rights.

The thing is, they may have a case -- Now, I'm no fan of the Phelps Klan, but isn't that the point of having a First Amendment? It's not for the people we want to hear speak, it's for the people whom we'd happily gag with duct tape.

*sigh* nobody said freedom was easy...

 

[TerranceL]

And it's possible that they might, if they can prove that the restrictions are too excessive, violating their first amendment rights.

The thing is, they may have a case -- Now, I'm no fan of the Phelps Klan, but isn't that the point of having a First Amendment? It's not for the people we want to hear speak, it's for the people whom we'd happily gag with duct tape.

*sigh* nobody said freedom was easy...

That's my question too.

What's the point of having free speech if you are only allowed to speak when nobody is around to listen?

 

[explodingboy]

The human scum that are the phelps will try to get it overturned.

Currently my money would be on west bro winning too. Free speech lawsuits being their specialty.

 

[gnomon]

Full text of the Act here: The Honoring America’s Veterans and Caring for Camp Lejeune Families Act of 2012 | House Committee on Veterans' Affairs


There's even a jab at the Westboro Baptist Church:



Apparently, those restrictions include staying at least 300 feet away, and not being allowed to protest two hours before or after a funeral.

Thoughts?

Pointless "there oughtta be a law" mentality.

Yes, these people, all dozen of them or less that usually show up to protest, are annoying. The best way to reduce that annoyance is to ignore it. Instead, we shove cameras in their face (which they want), put them on talk shows (which they want) and attempt to legislate against them (which they want).

How about not giving them what they want for a change.

Then there's the whole issue of most Americans didn't give a damn when it was just the funeral of homosexuals being protested in the '90's. Which is one of the reasons they expanded into protesting military funerals. They were not getting enough attention from the masses.

As far as the actual law. My biggest problem with a law regarding protests and funerals is the Constitutionality of the law and definition of protest. In New York City some years ago an entire community marched in protest to a funeral after an undercover police officer wrongfully harassed and killed a man. A riot broke out during this protest march when the police showed up en masse. The people had every right to assemble and did so peacefully until the show of force. It's a right reserved by the people.

Local ordinances which are successful against unwarranted protests are those that establish that such assemblies are prohibited for ALL funerals yet still allow assembly in the general area of the funeral. It allows protests for whatever reason yet still maintains a distance to maintain a modicum of respect.

This law is narrow in scope. If the people want a law to protect the respect of family members at a funeral than it should be for all funerals.

 

[Wolseley]

Personally, I think the VVA ought to be hired to stand perimeter guard at military funerals, just to take care of Mssr. Phelps and his ilk if they should happen to show up.

I know lots of VVA guys in my PTSD support group at the VA----and trust me, they are not guys you want to tangle with.

 

[Redac]

Personally, I think the VVA ought to be hired to stand perimeter guard at military funerals, just to take care of Mssr. Phelps and his ilk if they should happen to show up.

I know lots of VVA guys in my PTSD support group at the VA----and trust me, they are not guys you want to tangle with.

They might deserve it, but having a bunch of guys show up just to fight with the Westboro folk is just going to give them even more press.

 

[Amber Bird]

I agree violence against the Phelps clan would just give them what they want. They bait violence against themselves so they can file an assault charge and lawsuit, since many of the older Phelps brood are attorneys, so as to make money for their church and to keep their hate speech road trips active.

 

[yasic]

That's my question too.

What's the point of having free speech if you are only allowed to speak when nobody is around to listen?

I would never seek to ban speech from the public, for instance speaking in areas with heavy foot-traffic (as long as you are not blocking the traffic), in street corners, outside public buildings, or the like should always be protected.

That said, some places should be considered private. For instance, I am against protecting the right for men to use their speech in women's rest rooms. Protesting during a funeral seem to fall in that line.

 

[TLK Valentine]

They might deserve it, but having a bunch of guys show up just to fight with the Westboro folk is just going to give them even more press.

And worse, more funding. Fred Phelps is a master of the frivolous lawsuit -- having someone actually take a swing at a member of his "church" would be the equivalent of winning the lottery.