By Bob Allen
A Nebraska law that requires protesters to stand 500 feet away from a funeral service is being enforced unfairly to suppress the free speech of a small Baptist church in Kansas that pickets military funerals with anti-gay slogans that many Americans find offensive, according to a new document filed in federal court.
Shirley Phelps-Roper, a member of Westboro Baptist Church in Topeka, Kan., alleges in an amended free-speech lawsuit filed Sept. 2 in U.S. District Court in Lincoln, Neb., that local authorities routinely keep church protesters blocks away while allowing counter-protestors such as motorcycle riders and other citizens to gather immediately outside churches where military funerals are being held.
Phelps-Roper claims the 2006 Nebraska Funeral Picketing Act — one of several state laws across the country passed in response to the tiny independent Baptist congregation’s protest signs with messages including “God Hates Fags” — has been enforced unfairly and in ways that hinder church members from expressing their religious beliefs through orderly picketing and protests carried out according to the letter of the law.
The complaint, filed by Topeka lawyer and fellow church member Margie Phelps, cites at least 16 instances in which church members claim the law was applied strictly to Westboro Baptist Church protesters, while others engaged in picketing and protest activities with opposing views stood much closer to funeral locations.
Church members say the double standard is based on the content of their core message, that the deaths of soldiers in combat in Iraq and Afghanistan are connected to America’s sin.
The group, which claims to have conducted more than 50,000 pickets at various sites since 1991, says until it began targeting military funerals in 2005, the only message being delivered at public events was that fallen soldiers were heroes enjoying their reward in heaven, and no one was expressing the opposing view that their deaths were instead God’s judgment of the nation’s sins.
Church members say legal efforts to silence them based on the content of their message violate their constitutional rights to free speech and peaceful assembly.
In one village, the amended lawsuit alleges, a church member contacted local law enforcement to advise them of a planned picket — the church’s usual practice — only to be told by the sheriff that if they set foot in his town he would find something to arrest them for, even if it was not using a turn signal or improper parking.
During the course of the conversation, the sheriff reportedly told the church representative they could not picket because their message “has nothing to do with religion” and that church members were “a bunch of idiots.”
In another instance a county attorney allegedly discussed logistics of a planned protest and said he would be back in touch to finalize details. After that the attorney made himself unavailable for phone calls until he replied that he had gone to court and gotten an injunction against the picketers, and if they came they would be served with papers and required to appear in court.
The lawsuit says the actions of various Nebraska officials suppress free speech of Westboro Baptist Church members “because they disagree with the content, viewpoint and ideas expressed therein.”
The practice, the suit argues, is “reminiscent of an era when civil-rights laws became necessary in this country.”