Limits on funeral protests enacted
05/11/2006
Anti-gay group spurred legislation
BY PATRICK SWEENEY
Pioneer Press
A bill aimed at halting or regulating angry anti-homosexual protests at military funerals by a tiny church congregation from Kansas was signed into law Tuesday by Gov. Tim Pawlenty.
By enacting the law, Minnesota joins about a dozen states, including Wisconsin and South Dakota, that have passed laws recently to bar disruptive protests at funerals, memorial services and burials.
A string of recent demonstrations across the country at the funerals of soldiers and Marines killed in Iraq prompted the flurry of legislative action. The family of Fred Waldron Phelps Sr. of Topeka, Kan., carried out the protests along with members of the tiny Westboro Baptist Church he founded.
In the demonstrations, Phelps’ followers routinely have charged that the war deaths were God’s punishment of the United States for a culture that condones homosexuality.
The most recent demonstration by Phelps’ group in Minnesota was at the Feb. 23 funeral for Marine Cpl. Andrew Kemple in Anoka.
After that demonstration, Gov. Tim Pawlenty called for legislation regulating protests at funerals. Rep. Steve Smith, R-Mound, already was considering sponsoring such a bill before the Anoka protest.
By huge margins, Minnesota’s House and Senate passed bills limiting demonstrations. The compromise version Pawlenty signed into law Tuesday makes it a misdemeanor for anyone to protest or picket within 500 feet of a funeral, memorial service or burial with the intent of disrupting the ceremonies.
At a signing ceremony, Smith and Pawlenty said the legislation walks a fine line between protecting the First Amendment rights of protesters and protecting grieving families from intrusion during sacred and sensitive occasions.
“It doesn’t shut off people’s free-speech rights,” Pawlenty said. “It just says you have to go somewhere else to do it.”
Merrilee Carlson of Hastings, whose son, Army Sgt. Mike Carlson, died in Iraq in 2005, also spoke at the signing ceremony.
“No family will again need to suffer the pain that was inflicted on families who had the task of burying their sons or daughters who fought for our country, for our state and for our freedoms,” Carlson said.
The U.S. House approved Tuesday night similar legislation that would ban protests within 500 feet of graveside services in federal cemeteries. Four Minnesota representatives — Mark Kennedy, Gil Gutknecht, John Kline and Collin Peterson — were among 174 co-sponsors of the bill.