Respect for Fallen Heroes
May. 30th, 2006 01:25 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
feste_sylvainI can't stand Fred Phelps, his whole God Hates Fags movement, and his more recent "Thank God for 9/11" tangent. The man is a throwback who makes Neandertals look socially progressive in comparison.
So imagine my anger at our president and Congress, who have managed to contrive a situation where I'm bound to defend that waste of oxygen.
The "Respect for Fallen Heroes" act was written exactly to prevent protests at soldiers' funerals. Let's pretend for a moment that this act was prompted by due moral outrage at Phelps (which should be easy). The problem is that there are already laws against harassment (which is a criminal offense); if we want to shut Phelps up, and potentially even lock Phelps up, it should be a simple matter of charging him and his crew with harassment. From the footage I've seen, they're indeed guilty of that (but of course, they deserve a proper trial and not just media clips).
But this latest act (signed yesterday to commemorate Memorial Day) goes beyond that. It runs afoul of the 1st amendment's explicit and enumerated protections of speech. It makes a silent, proper protest against any governmental blundering responsible for soldiers' deaths illegal (if such a protest takes place within some mystical "forbidden zones").
The legal requirement for showing harm, a key element of harassment, is gone.
To coin a phrase, this act lets the terrorists win.
So imagine my anger at our president and Congress, who have managed to contrive a situation where I'm bound to defend that waste of oxygen.
The "Respect for Fallen Heroes" act was written exactly to prevent protests at soldiers' funerals. Let's pretend for a moment that this act was prompted by due moral outrage at Phelps (which should be easy). The problem is that there are already laws against harassment (which is a criminal offense); if we want to shut Phelps up, and potentially even lock Phelps up, it should be a simple matter of charging him and his crew with harassment. From the footage I've seen, they're indeed guilty of that (but of course, they deserve a proper trial and not just media clips).
But this latest act (signed yesterday to commemorate Memorial Day) goes beyond that. It runs afoul of the 1st amendment's explicit and enumerated protections of speech. It makes a silent, proper protest against any governmental blundering responsible for soldiers' deaths illegal (if such a protest takes place within some mystical "forbidden zones").
The legal requirement for showing harm, a key element of harassment, is gone.
To coin a phrase, this act lets the terrorists win.
