They may not have God on their side, but they do have the ACLU.

The Supreme Court is awfully fond of extending First Amendment protection to 'non verbal speech'. I don't suppose there's any chance they'd go for horsewhipping as a temperate counter-argument to this swill.

There was a time when it was a general principal at law that 'speech calculated to provoke a breach of the peace' was NOT protected - i.e. if you called somebody a Motherf***er and he punched your lights out, you had started it. Sadly, this seems to have gone by the boards. Still, I have to say I'd like to see somebody argue in court that these swine are obviously trying to get attacked by a bunch of mourning Marines and consequently should be restrained for their own good.

Seriously, there's The Law and then there are The Rules. The Rules say that if you go to an Al Sharpton rally in Harlem and loudly call him a Ni**er, you don't come back. The Rules say that if you act like these pinheads, sooner or later somebody knocks you down and stomps you so hard you pancreas extrudes through your anus.

Hell, for these idiots, will be an eternity of being totally ignored. They'd probably prefer being tossed into boiling brimstone; at least somebody would be paying attention to them.

CSP has the right idea. But I don't know if the Supreme Court will side with these lunatics on this one. First Amendment-protected speech still is subject to reasonable time, place and manner restrictions, especially where the subject party complaining of the speech is a private rather than public figure. American military men and women are not public figures, nor under precedent can they be "writ large" into the public eye by the Phelps contagion publicly mocking their deaths. And, whereas these loons have other public places to protest aside from funerals (which if on private property cannot be invaded by these imbecillia) TP&M restrictions well may apply.

One other thing. If the military casualty rate in Iraq is a function of God's wrath due to acceptance of homosexuality in U.S. culture, how do these morons explain the substantially higher rates in U.S. conflicts when homosexuality was NOT generally accepted at all. Of course, logical thought on these pathetic assclowns is a lost cause. Stonewall Jackson: "Kill them all, kill every last one standing."

Monsoon

I am really surprised that none of them have been killed while protesting at military funerals. I would hate to see it happen, but it seems almost inevitable to me.

I agree that it seems that they should already have been reduced to paste, just in the natural order of things, but I think I understand why this isn't so:

1) Grieving people these days are far more passive than they used to be in, say, the Civil War era. It's the social norm, and doesn't leave a lot of room for spontaneous bursts of understandable violence.

2) First Amendment of not, most Police departments have some sense of fitness. I'll bet that, just out of camera on most shots of these dweebs, is a patrol car going through licenses and registrations and writing tickets .... while keeping a close eye on the twits so as not to miss ANYTHING that could be used as a legal pretext to bounce their butts into the slammer.

3) Most people are picky about what they'll touch.

They did get attacked once and had a window broken out of the vehicle they where in.

napolitano on oreilly said the preach has got the right to protest without repercussions because they are on federal property or something.7/24/06
If they came to your residence and raised hell, they could be arrested.
Just sayin....

csp- I remember the days you could sock someone(phelps) for this outrageous behave and the cops would turn their head or ignore it.
bummer.

There's an organization of patriotic motorcycle riders - Patriot Guard Riders - that attends funerals of fallen military heroes and provides a shield for the families against these sicko moonbats. Their original purpose was just to attend the funerals (at the invitation of the families) and to show their respect, but when the nutcase fringe began to "protest" at the services, they would line up their motorcycles between the family and the protestors. They were hoping that recent legislation would make this part of their job unnecessary, but it looks like the ACLU has other plans.

BTW, the ACLU receives quite a bit of money from our tax dollars - when they file a suit and some dingbat federal judge agrees with their position, they 'recover' huge attorney fees (that we pay for). So ACLU is an organization that is trying to tear down the social fabric of this country, and the taxpayers are footing the bill for their sick agenda. Disgraceful...

Actually, while the Westboro Church may be disgusting to most, the ACLU defends quite a few everyday, mainstream Christians. To see my 3 minute YouTube video using this case as a stepping off point to debunk misinfo about the ACLU from Fox News, Bill O'Reilly, and others, see this link: Fox News Forgets to Mention ACLU Story Contradicts Frequent Fox Falsehood