Morons plan to protest Elizabeth Edwards' funeral

[Asguard]

So what, lets say this was your husband/wife/parents/child how would you feel if your private funeral was suddenly invaded by 2 groups of protesters? You think that's in anyway better than 1. Forget "counter protest" push for laws which prevent any protests at a funeral or with in 2 kms of a cemetery or whatever

 

[Lori_7]

So what, lets say this was your husband/wife/parents/child how would you feel if your private funeral was suddenly invaded by 2 groups of protesters? You think that's in anyway better than 1. Forget "counter protest" push for laws which prevent any protests at a funeral or with in 2 kms of a cemetery or whatever

oh laws shmaws. i would feel like the whole town showed up at the funeral in order to honor my husband/wife/parents/child.

 

[Asguard]

You would feel honored that 2 groups were hijacking the funeral, yelling at eachother, probably abusing the children at the funeral. Sure

I have been to protests about the Iraq war, I wouldn't take a young child to even a one sided and quite tame protest like that in Australia. If that's not child friendly why would a large 2 sided bigot fest probably with the police trying to hold them apart, add to that the fact that they are also griving and that this isn't a coincidental protest but rather aimed at the same person the child is griving.... yea that's the way to treat people simply because they happen to be gay

 

[Asguard]

BTW, sadam got treated better than that at his execution and when people treated him badly during they were reprimanded where as these paricites are defended
What a joke

 

[Lori_7]

You would feel honored that 2 groups were hijacking the funeral, yelling at eachother, probably abusing the children at the funeral. Sure

I have been to protests about the Iraq war, I wouldn't take a young child to even a one sided and quite tame protest like that in Australia. If that's not child friendly why would a large 2 sided bigot fest probably with the police trying to hold them apart, add to that the fact that they are also griving and that this isn't a coincidental protest but rather aimed at the same person the child is griving.... yea that's the way to treat people simply because they happen to be gay

that's not what happened at the funeral in the news story i referred to. the protest was actually shut down by peaceful people who just came out in droves and parked themselves on any public ground that the protesters could have congregated on, so they left.

if we have to make it law then fine, but don't you agree it's pretty pathetic that we have to? imo this was just a good example of a community getting together and standing for something and accomplishing something without a law, and they did it, not the police with pepper spray. i thought it was awesome.

and you know what, if it were my funeral or a relatives funeral i would just figure, this is the world you live in, and this is the world you die in.

 

[Asguard]

I doubt that anything short of criminal santions will stop people who tried to fly to the other side of the earth to protest simply because an actor played a gay man in a movie. Thank God for our imigration act which kept these sick wackos out of the country. I wish laws protecting funerals weren't nessary, I wish a few bars of kumbia (sorry think that's misspelled) but if they are willing to try fighting the Australian imigration act to "protest" at Heath ledger's funeral, I doubt a few people in a park would stop this. Throwing them in jail MIGHT stop these freaks

 

[birch]

they are just doing the dirty work of moderate christian wishes too.

they 'want' something done but they don't want to get the negative flak or condemnation for it. who is even more hypocritical or guilty?

 

[GeoffP]

So what, lets say this was your husband/wife/parents/child how would you feel if your private funeral was suddenly invaded by 2 groups of protesters? You think that's in anyway better than 1. Forget "counter protest" push for laws which prevent any protests at a funeral or with in 2 kms of a cemetery or whatever

Here's my perspective on distance: it would be unfair to force a legitimate or moral protest to take place at some distance at which it would be impossible to relay its message.

The problem for WBC is that it's not a legitmate or moral issue.

 

[Tiassa]

Fizzle

Well now ... that was, uh ... er ... um ...

The funeral also attracted three adults and two children from the Westboro Baptist Church in Topeka, Kan., a tiny, anti-gay religious group, who spent an hour waving signs, including one reading "Thank God for Cancer." The church members, whose fight for the right to picket at the funerals of soldiers was argued in front of the Supreme Court earlier this month, were kept two blocks from the entrance to the church. Word of their protest set off an online organizing effort, and an estimated 200 to 300 people to show up in the rain for a counterprotest. Their signs read "love" and "hero."

(Severson)​

... anticlimactic.
____________________

Notes:

Severson, Kim. "Elizabeth Edwards Eulogized as Defender of Her Family". The New York Times. December 11, 2010. NYTimes.com. December 11, 2010. http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/12/us/politics/12edwards.html

 

[superstring01]

To stop protesters from protesting at the pollies events, the excuse was security but in reality the political strategy was the ovious reasons.

Not in this country. The only exception is polling places, which requires that NOBODY come within 100' and not block common ingress or egress. That's it.

100' is nothing. I can make out the pock marks on a man's face from that distance, surely there is no imposition in that limit.

~String

 

[Asguard]

Your pulling my leg right string?

http://www.progressive.org/mag_wx121207

That one just happened to be the top result for a Google search for "free speach zones" but it talks about bush and Obama both putting in place either protest exclusion zones or areas far away they can protest

 

[Tiassa]

Free speech zones are common in the U.S.

Not in this country. The only exception is polling places, which requires that NOBODY come within 100' and not block common ingress or egress. That's it.

We've had free speech zones for years. I originally thought it was something that had to do with WTO '99 in Seattle, but the idea is apparently a Vietnam-era outcome.

Once the legality of the "no protest zone" was established, police around the country took the blunt instrument introduced in Seattle as an emergency measure and refined it into a routine form of policing. If there were certain areas where first amendment rights no longer applied, so the reasoning went, then they were defined in relation to places where the first amendment still existed. Ergo, if you created a "free speech zone"—a sort of First Amendment equivalent of Vietnam’s "Strategic Hamlet" —all of the sudden you could deny any and all permits for protests and rallies outside that zone. And without a permit, anyone who failed to disperse was basically violating what police considered "the law" ....

.... Et voila! The crude and poorly thought out methods of the police riot during the WTO protests had been institutionalized. Outside "free speech zones," police claimed carte blanche to arrest people at their discretion, or simply assault people for being in public space. These strategies evolved in fits and starts, and did not really become solidified until the Democratic and Republican National Conventions in 2004 in Boston and New York City resepctivley.

The "free speech zone" at the DNC in Boston that year showed the extremes to which the policing logic could go: Under subway tracks, ringed with barbed wire fence, miles from the convention, it was basically an outdoor prison.

(Griffey)​

As Wikipedia:

Free speech zones (also known as First Amendment Zones, Free speech cages, and Protest zones) are areas set aside in public places for political activists to exercise their right of free speech in the United States. The First Amendment to the United States Constitution states that "Congress shall make no law... abridging... the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances." The existence of free speech zones is based on U.S. court decisions stipulating that the government may regulate the time, place, and manner—but not content—of expression.​

The 1988 DNC in Atlanta, both conventions in '92 and '96, WTO '99, both conventions in '04, and throughout Bush's presidency the Secret Service would establish such zones.

They're pretty commonplace in the U.S. these days.
____________________

Notes:

Griffey, Trevor. "The WTO Effect". Publicola. November 24, 2009. Publicola.net. December 13, 2010. http://www.publicola.net/2009/11/24/the-wto-effect/

Wikipedia. "Free speech zone". December 7, 2010. Wikipedia.org. December 11, 2010. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_speech_zone

 

[Bells]

Well now ... that was, uh ... er ... um ...

The funeral also attracted three adults and two children from the Westboro Baptist Church in Topeka, Kan., a tiny, anti-gay religious group, who spent an hour waving signs, including one reading "Thank God for Cancer." The church members, whose fight for the right to picket at the funerals of soldiers was argued in front of the Supreme Court earlier this month, were kept two blocks from the entrance to the church. Word of their protest set off an online organizing effort, and an estimated 200 to 300 people to show up in the rain for a counterprotest. Their signs read "love" and "hero."

(Severson)​

... anticlimactic.
____________________

Notes:

Severson, Kim. "Elizabeth Edwards Eulogized as Defender of Her Family". The New York Times. December 11, 2010. NYTimes.com. December 11, 2010. http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/12/us/politics/12edwards.html

Yes, I read about that and chuckled to myself. But really, running them over would have culled their numbers.

Who the hell holds up a sign with 'Thank God for Cancer'? I think one of the saddest parts of that story is again the confirmation that the little fucktards are breeding and their spawn will probably end up with the same demented beliefs they have.

 

[Tiassa]

Brief remarks on insanity

But really, running them over would have culled their numbers.

The only real problem with that is that I cannot make an exception for them. If we permit mowing these folks down, well, the list of people I think should join them is actually pretty long.

Who the hell holds up a sign with 'Thank God for Cancer'?

WBC and its minions are so intelligent that they could go before the Supreme Court with what looks like a proper "slam-dunk" case, and likely blow it. We'll find out how badly in June, but Margie Phelps will be a law school legend for the next generation of students.

I think one of the saddest parts of that story is again the confirmation that the little fucktards are breeding and their spawn will probably end up with the same demented beliefs they have.

It's the American Way.

I know that sounds sarcastic and vicious and all, but this is a country where people frequently argue about whether a school is violating parental rights by teaching children facts.

During this last election, as I drove to the Post Office to drop off my ballot, my daughter lectured me on how Barack Obama is evil because he wants to keep people like her maternal grandmother from going to the doctor. Even her mother, a Glenn Beck fan (I think; she buys his books), couldn't cope with that one. The maternal grandparents insist on teaching my daughter some ridiculously stupid things, and the girl clings to them because, well, Gran'ma and Gran'pa wouldn't lie to her, right?

She had a panic attack in Mexico because someone (Gran'ma?) taught her that she'll die if she eats french fries.

Yeah, my kid is off french fries for the time being, because her crazy grandmother insists on teaching her all sorts of stupid stuff, and I have zero leverage under the law to stop this sort of shit.

WBC is particularly acute in their craziness, but that's the thing. It's not so much that something is or isn't crazy, but, rather, a question of how crazy it is in the first place.

Woman's place is in the home? Woman should always wear dresses, and not pants? Woman is subordinate to her natural master, the husband? These sorts of ideas might be crazy, but they're not too crazy.

Abstinence education? Even when they know it doesn't work? Crazy, sure, but not too crazy.

And the thing is that the line seems arbitrary. That is, nobody can point it out; they just know when something or someone has crossed it.

 

[Asguard]

I sympathize with you mate, don't know wether you have herd of Pauline Hanson's but my grandmother thinks she was right and that everything which comes out of Abbott's mouth is correct but you can't argue with her even when she is being bloody ovioualy stupid (like the comment that the country was going bankrupt)