Take a look at this story..it doesnt get much worse.
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/chi-0601110254jan11,1,6054312.story?coll=chi-news-hed
For those who can't get to it:
Funeral protest ban is pushed
Downstate legislator set to introduce bill
By Charles Sheehan
Tribune staff reporter
Published January 11, 2006
Angered by a religious group's demonstrations at scores of military funerals, a state lawmaker said he will soon introduce a bill to make such protests illegal in Illinois.
Legislation to be sponsored by Rep. Brandon Phelps (D-Norris City) would make Illinois the fifth state to introduce such a bill in response to protests by members of Westboro Baptist Church of Topeka, Kan.
Members of the church, led by Rev. Fred Phelps, who is not related to Brandon Phelps, have picketed dozens of funerals for soldiers killed overseas.
Followers of the church, mostly family members of Fred Phelps, say the killings of American soldiers by improvised explosive devices are a manifestation of God's wrath over homosexuality in the United States.
Church members have picketed at least six funerals for Illinois soldiers, Lt. Gov. Pat Quinn said Tuesday.
The proposed Let Them Rest in Peace Act in Illinois would keep protesters 300 feet away from funerals and memorial services for 30 minutes before and after the ceremony.
The state bills raise sticky constitutional questions that legal experts say could rise into the highest levels of the U.S. judicial system.
A law already exists in Kansas, and on Tuesday a panel in Indiana endorsed legislation that would make disorderly conduct a felony within 500 feet of funerals or memorial services.
In August, church members at the funeral of Army Staff Sgt. Jeremy Doyle, an Indianapolis native killed in Iraq, held signs that read, "Thank God for dead soldiers."
The proposed bill in Illinois does not mention the Westboro Church by name, though Quinn acknowledges it was the catalyst.
Phelps sponsored the bill after attending a funeral in Anna, Ill., for Army Spec. Brian Romines, who was killed by a bomb in Baghdad. Church members arrived in Anna for the June 18 funeral and passed out fliers saying Romines was sent to Iraq "where God killed him with an IED."
On Sunday, the group plans to picket a memorial service for 12 West Virginia miners who died after a mine blast. That explosion, too, was God's retaliation for homosexuality, said Shirley Phelps-Roper, Phelps' daughter and a church attorney.
Soldiers' families remain the primary targets.
Soldiers "have been raised on a big lie that being gay is OK," Phelps-Roper said Tuesday. "This is a nation of idolatry that is run rampant with adultery and fornication."
She has vowed to fight any law barring protests.
Legal battle lines likely will be drawn over whether laws are "content-based" or "content-neutral," said David Hudson Jr., a research attorney for the First Amendment Center at Vanderbilt University.
If a law is considered to be content-based, meaning it favors one opinion over another, it is subject to the highest form of judicial review, he said.
"Strict scrutiny leaves few survivors, and since these laws seem to be targeting a particular subject matter, they seem to be content-specific," Hudson said. "The kicker is that even if something is content-based, it doesn't necessarily mean it's unconstitutional, it just means the government has to advance a government-based interest in a very narrow way."
Richard Fallon, professor of constitutional law at Harvard University, said it would be very difficult for courts to uphold such laws and said any legislation must be "narrowly tailored to promote a compelling governmental interest."
"The government could have a compelling interest in stopping speech on the basis of content, because these funerals are a particularly raw emotional time for friends and relatives. That may outweigh the value of free speech under normal circumstances," he said. "If this speech was specifically designed to exacerbate wounds, that could be the key."
That is exactly what Quinn says is happening at funerals in Illinois and elsewhere.
"It's an effort by a hate group to heckle, harass and cancel out the right of the mourners, the family, to exercise their 1st Amendment rights of expression, religion and assembly," he said.
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csheehan@tribune.com
Copyright © 2006, Chicago Tribune
