Hateful Protesting, freedom of speech?

The fact that there are people protesting like that at, of all things, a funeral or memorial service, is in my opinion completely outrageous to begin with.

If my brother in Iraq was killed on duty (knock on wood), and there were people like this at his funeral among the mourners, I'd be furious. I'd be tempted to tell the officers to use live ammunition, and then aim the cannon and the gun salute at the protesters. Ahem. [/rant]

But really, in agreement with Gumby, this legislation does not take away their freedom of speech per se. It's merely saying they can't get within a certain distance. No soldier's family deserves that kind of crap at the funeral. To say that protests of that nature are rude is an understatement. Why can't the people protesting instead, for example, go and be with their families like the people at the funeral are trying to?

Jam it back in, in the dark.

Originally Posted by Generic Badass

It's an absolutely disgusting practice, but I'm against this sort of regulation. I agree that there should be some distance between the protestors and mourners, but only to a point where they can't physically disrupt the funeral.

It's not like they wouldn't be able to find some place nearby where they would get some degree of attention. "Camp Casey" was three miles from Bush's ranch, and we all know how much attention that got.

There's nowhere I can't reach.

Originally Posted by Generic Badass

They're not pushing for this act to quell the media attention, they're doing it to allow mourners to carry out a funeral/memorial service in peace. I don't ever recall Sheehan stopping Bush's motorcade en route to the ranch.

I know, I'm just saying that the protestors don't have to be right there at the funeral to use their freedom of speech and still get their message across.

How ya doing, buddy?

Originally Posted by Watts

(Yeah, I know those white power gatherings usually aren't peaceful. But it typically isn't the white power types that start the violence. It's the morons stupid enough to allow themselves to be goaded by those dipshits.)

Well yeah, they might as well scream "Hit me so I can sue you!" Similarly, the KKK once held a rally in my town about 6 years ago. The town's solution? We held a "unity rally" on the other side of town at the same time as the KKK's rally, and the town rally got a pretty good turnout. I don't remember there being any report of violence. Certainly distance (a mile or so in this case) was a major factor in that, which is why I'm not against this legislation. The KKK still had their rally, they said their peace, and we didn't have to hear (or read) a word of it, unless we actually chose to ourselves.

I am a dolphin, do you want me on your body?

Quote:

"We don't picket to win people over, idiot. It's to harden people's hearts. Make them hate. Make them hate God even more than they already do."

Quote:

"...we hope that by our preaching some will be saved."

Somehow, those two statements being in the same quotation doesn't make much sense to me. I hope the news people learned their lesson in how ridiculous these wackos are and quit giving them the attention they so crave.

I was speaking idiomatically.