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thedrifter
03-25-07, 01:33 PM
Church: law will not change funeral protests

By Carrie Spencer Ghose - The Associated Press
Posted : Sunday Mar 25, 2007 10:58:53 EDT

COLUMBUS, Ohio — Members of a Kansas church that pickets the funerals of dead soldiers say they will continue with plans for a protest Monday in northeast Ohio despite a decision by a federal court upholding the state’s law limiting where they may stand.

The mother of the targeted soldier, Army Sgt. Robert Carr, was unfazed.

“He’s getting his hero’s welcome home. We’re going to bury him in a hero’s way,” Christine Wortman of Warren told The Associated Press on Saturday. “It’s Robbie’s day, not theirs.”

On Friday, U.S. District Court Judge Donald Nugent in Cleveland upheld a state law prohibits protesters from being within 300 feet of a cemetery, funeral home, or place of worship either one hour before or after a burial service.

However, Nugent struck down a portion of the 2006 law that extended the 300-foot buffer zone along funeral procession routes, saying it was unconstitutionally broad.

At least 27 states have enacted laws restricting funeral picketing, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures.

The laws are aimed at Westboro Baptist Church, a small fundamentalist congregation in Topeka, Kan., whose members picket burials of U.S. troops killed in combat, arguing that the deaths are God’s punishment for the country’s tolerance of homosexuals.

The Ohio chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union sued along with a church member, saying the state cannot pass a law restricting freedom of speech.

Church members will confer with their attorney before deciding whether to appeal, said member Elizabeth Phelps, a member and daughter of founder Fred Phelps.

At least the ruling clarifies the law and how to enforce it, Phelps said Saturday.

“Renegade law enforcement types, they don’t get their brain around it and they over-enforce,” she said.

The church had sued on principle but most of its protests are outside the buffer zone anyway because they want to be near heavy traffic to get their message to the most people, she said. The ruling won’t change anything about Monday’s planned protest in Warren by about seven members, she said.

While the protesters are usually outside the buffer zone, Phelps said, relatives and friends of the soldiers often angrily rush up to them.

Carr’s funeral is planned for Monday at Believers Christian Fellowship in Warren, with burial to follow in Fowler Township, where his father lives 15 miles north of Youngstown.

“The military has assured us they will not get close to us,” Wortman said. “I don’t care where they go. I don’t believe anybody will be looking.

“Robbie knows, and every soldier out there, that God is not punishing our country.”

Carr, 22, died March 13 when an improvised explosive device detonated beneath the armored vehicle he was driving, said his father, Jeffrey Carr.

He was expected home on leave to celebrate his April 10 wedding anniversary with wife Nina, and the pair planned a big family wedding to renew the vows in their civil ceremony, Wortman said.

Plans also are unchanged for the Patriot Guard Riders, who form a human chain of people holding flags at military funerals to block view of any protests, said Edwin Romero, of Boardman, who’s coordinating the effort for Carr’s funeral.

The group, which started with motorcycle enthusiasts in Kansas who would gun their engines to drown out the protester’s chants, has grown to 85,000 members nationwide, with and without bikes, Romero said.

“We don’t confront, we don’t discuss,” he said. “We don’t actually acknowledge that they’re even there.”

Ellie