A federal appeals court Thursday sided with a Kansas woman who believes that God’s hatred of homosexuality requires her to picket funerals for American soldiers holding signs that read “Thank God for Dead Soldiers” and “God Blew Up the Troops.”
Shirley Phelps-Roper is part of a Topeka, Kan. church that contends God is punishing the United States for permitting homosexuality by killing soldiers. In response to a August 2005 protest by Phelps-Roper and other members of her church at the funeral of Army Spc. Edward Lee Myers in St. Joseph, Mo., the Missouri legislature passed a par of laws that prohibited picketing near a funeral location or procession.
Phelps-Roper sued the state of Missouri and asked for an injunction against the enforcement of the provisions, claiming they were unconstitutional. The federal trial court denied Phelps-Roper her injunction and she appealed that denial to the federal appeals court in St. Louis.
Thursday, a three-judge panel of the Eighth Circuit granted Phelps-Roper the injunction, pending a full hearing on the merits of her claim. Typically, an injunction is granted if the petitioner can prove she is likely to prevail on her lawsuit. In this case, the panel found that Missouri’s law was likely unconstitutional because “any interest the state has in protecting funeral mourners from unwanted speech is outweighed by the First Amendment right to free speech.”
The matter will now return to the federal trial court in Kansas City for a full hearing on the merits of Phelps-RoperÂ’s suit. In the meantime, she and members of her church can resume picketing military funerals.
The Phelps gang is not a church, it is a lawyer power-cult, using insult and abuse as their symbols of status and dominance. Fred himself is a disbarred lawyer, and 9 of his 13 children are lawyers. At least two of them are employed by the Kansas Department of Corrections.
As an aside, a visit to the church's website reveals that the church doesn't simply show up funerals. Upcoming targets include Billy Joel (and not for continuing to release greatest hits packages), Ozzy Osbourne, R. Kelly, Mannheim Steamroller(!) and, for some unspecified reason, the University of Kansas basketball game against Ohio University.
A steamroller is what we need for the next Phelps demonstration.
The gay activist group Log Cabin Republicans has some very interesting dirt on Mr. Phelps and some of his disreputable associates:
"Fred Phelps, Jr. (left) and Al Gore (center) Fundraiser at Phelps Home Topeka, Kansas"
-Fred Phelps was a Gore delegate at the 1988 Demo convention
-Phelps ran for governor in the Demo primary in 1990.
-Phelps hosted a fund-raiser for Gore at his son's Topeka home in 1989.
-Gore invited Phelps to both the 1993 and 1997 Clinton inaugurations
Inconvenient truth, anyone?