LJ-SEC: (ORIGINALLY POSTED BY lihan161051)

http://www.theindychannel.com/news/7649781/detail.html?subid=22100444&qs=1;bp=t

KOKOMO, Ind. -- Police will have a new legal weapon as they prepare for the Monday funeral of a Kokomo soldier killed in Iraq.

State lawmakers on Thursday enacted a law curtailing protests at funerals ahead of an expected protest at the funeral of Army Sgt. Rickey Jones, 21. Jones died in a roadside bomb attack last week in Iraq.

Gov. Mitch Daniels signed the legislation late Thursday and it went into effect immediately. Disorderly conduct within 500 feet of a funeral, burial, funeral procession or viewing is now a felony offense.

The law was enacted because of a Kansas-based group's protests at the funerals of Indiana soldiers.

The protesters, from Westboro Baptist Church, claim soldiers are dying in Iraq because the United States supports homosexuals. The group plans to protest at Jones' funeral.

Vandals have targeted Jones' family's home and his family has been barraged with hateful phone messages within the past week.

I'm not sure whether I like the idea that WBC has now forced a state legislature to curtail free speech, even if it does enforce a certain degree of decorum at funerals. Some things just shouldn't require laws to legislate the painfully obvious. But .. if this provides a legal means of keeping these WBC idiots out of people's faces at a military funeral, it may be worth it.

I still wonder what Phelps and his band of idiots think they can possibly accomplish by this tactic, though .. seems to me they're doing more harm than good to their own cause. But then again, that applies to most of what they do, I guess.