LJ-SEC: (ORIGINALLY POSTED BY amethyst_hunter)

BBC rightfully calls Phelps & co. a hate group

Hate group targeted by lawmakers
By Kathryn Westcott
BBC News

Preacher Fred Phelps' anti-gay campaign is testing the limits of the US constitutional commitment to free speech.
His protests could hardly be better designed to provoke outrage among the great majority of Americans.

The 76-year-old head of the Westboro Baptist Church has over the past year been using military funerals to spread his message that soldiers' deaths in Iraq are God's punishment against America for tolerating homosexuality.

Reverend Fred Phelps is used to being in the crosshairs of US lawmakers. Dozens of states have either passed or are considering passing laws aimed at restricting his picketing of soldiers' funerals.

[My note: Shirley Phelps-Roper recently whined to Florida legislators about their refusing to let her and her merry bunch picket such funerals, and as a parting shot of their typical unChristian behavior wished us a happy hurricane season, if you know what I mean.]

On Wednesday, Congress approved legislation barring demonstrators from disrupting military funerals at national cemeteries.

Family group

Fred Phelps is the head of the Westboro Baptist Church based in Topeka, Kansas. The extremism of his views can be gauged by the name he has given his website - godhatesfags.com.

His church is small, consisting of some 75 members, mostly from his extended family. It is not allied to any other church group.

Yet, despite this, it has managed to get itself heard across the nation. The group has disrupted funerals up and down the country by waving signs saying "Thank God for Dead Soldiers" and shouting insults at the bereaved.

In a recent interview with the BBC, Mr Phelps' daughter Shirley Phelps-Roper explained the group's motives.

"We're trying to help get this nation to connect the dots - you turn the country over to fags and now those soldiers are coming home in body bags," she said.

So far, nine states have approved laws that impose restrictions on demonstrations at funerals and burials. More than 20 other states are considering similar legislation.

The Respect for America's Fallen Heroes Act passed by both houses of Congress on Wednesday now only needs President George W Bush's signature.

It would bar protests within 90 metres (300 feet) of the entrance of national cemeteries, including Arlington, outside Washington DC, and within 45 metres (150 feet) of a road into the cemetery from an hour before to an hour after a funeral.

Freedom of speech

The debate over the church's actions has also taken in the nature of freedom of speech and whether or not state measures infringe on the constitution's first amendment guaranteeing free speech.

Civil liberty groups have argued that such measures are vulnerable to challenge.

In response to the demonstrations, a motorcycle group including many veterans, has been appearing at military funerals to pay respects to the fallen service members and to drown out the sound of the Phelps' group's protests.

"We turn up to the funeral if we have been invited by the family," Kurt Mayer of the motorcycle group Patriot Guard Riders, told BBC World Service radio recently. "We block the view of vulgar and offensive signs."

Mr Mayer acknowledged that one of the great ironies is that these are soldiers who have died protecting freedoms, such as the freedom of speech, yet he and his Harley Davidson-driving comrades form human shields between the mourners and the protesters to block the signs and insults.

"You do have the right to say pretty much what you want to in America - no matter how vulgar and offensive it is," Mr Mayer told the BBC.

But he says that "any sensible person would agree that a funeral is not the correct time or place to make a political or religious statement."

National attention

Mr Phelps and his family have been travelling the country denouncing homosexuality since the early 1990s. They have picketed the funeral of Aids victims and published a newsletter denouncing gays.

But it was not until after the brutal death of an openly gay man Matthew Shepard in Wyoming in 1998 that the group really gained national attention.

Shepard's death deeply shocked America. He was a university student who accepted a lift from two men in a bar in Laramie. They drove him to a field, beat him savagely, tied him to a fence and left him for dead.

Shortly afterwards, Mr Phelps tried to have a 6ft granite monument to Shepard installed in a park in the victim's hometown, stating that he had entered hell for "defying God's warning".

[My note: Phelps has also set up a website (linked with his main hatepot of course) that cheerfully proclaims the "X number of days Matthew Shepard has been burning in hell" complete with an image of Shepard's face surrounded by animated flame graphics; Diane Whipple, a coach who was mauled to death by a neighbor's dogs, received a similar posthumous website dishonor courtesy of the Phelpses.]

He then tried to donate it to a courthouse, which similarly resisted his overture.

The preacher has said he will abide by the Congressional measure if it becomes law. But legal challenges cannot be ruled out.

Mr Phelps is a former lawyer and a number of his 13 children are practising lawyers.



For Wiccan Nev. soldier, death brings fight

I'm not sure how relevant this one is to this community, but given that there are probably some Wiccans here I thought you'd find this article interesting. Basically, a soldier's wife is trying to have a Wiccan emblem designated on his tombstone (as apparently that was his wish), and the Department of Veteran Affairs is having none of it.

By SCOTT SONNER, Associated Press Writer Thu May 25, 7:14 PM ET

RENO, Nev. - Nevada officials are pressing the Department of Veteran Affairs to allow the family of a soldier killed in Afghanistan to place a Wiccan symbol on his headstone.

Federal officials so far have refused to grant the requests of the family of Sgt. Patrick Stewart, 34, who was killed in Afghanistan last September when the Nevada Army National Guard helicopter he was in was shot down.

"Every veteran and military member deserves recognition for their contributions to our country," said Tim Tetz, executive director of the Nevada Office of Veterans Services.

The state's top veterans official said Thursday that he was "diligently pursuing" the matter in cooperation with Gov. Kenny Guinn, Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev., and Rep. Jim Gibbons, R-Nev.

"Sgt. Stewart and his family deserve recognition for their contributions to our country," Tetz said.

"It's unfortunate the process is taking so long, but I am certain Sgt. Patrick will ultimately receive his marker with the Wiccan symbol," he said.

Stewart, of Fernley, who was posthumously awarded the Bronze Star and Purple Heart, was a follower of the Wiccan religion, which the Department of Veterans Affairs does not recognize.

Wiccans worship the Earth and believe they must give to the community. Some consider themselves witches, pagans or neo-pagans.

The Veterans Affairs' National Cemetery Administration allows only approved emblems of religious beliefs on government headstones. Over the years, it has approved more than 30, including symbols for the Tenrikyo Church, United Moravian Church and Sikhs. There's also an emblem for atheists — but none for Wiccans.

[My note: That IS weird, considering all the other things, including atheism, that they'll grant requests for. Is there a specific reason for this or do they just have a special hate-on for Wicca? Or is it because they associate the pentacle with Satanism and therefore don't want to give tacit approval to what has usually been considered a cult?]

Stewart's widow, Roberta Stewart, said she's hopeful she'll receive permission to add the Wiccan pentacle — a circle around a five-pointed star — to her late husband's government-issued memorial plaque.

While Memorial Day services are scheduled Monday at the Northern Nevada Veterans Memorial Cemetery in Fernley, Roberta Stewart plans an alternative service at Fernley's Out of Town Park. She's calling the ceremony the Sgt. Patrick Stewart Freedom for All Faiths Memorial Service.

"This is discrimination against our religion," Roberta Stewart said.

"The least his country can do is give him the symbol of faith as he would have wished," she recently told the Daily Sparks Tribune.

The Rev. Selena Fox, senior minister of the Wiccan Circle Sanctuary in Barneveld, Wis., is among those who have been pushing the federal government to adopt the emblem. She said the Veterans Affairs Department has been considering such requests for nearly nine years with no decision.

"While this stonewalling continues, family of soldiers who gave the ultimate sacrifice are still waiting for equal rights," Fox said by telephone.

"Sgt. Stewart was shot down by terrorists. He deserves to be recognized. I'm holding out hope that my ancestors who fought in the Revolutionary War did not do so in vain and that the freedom of religion on which our country was founded will prevail," she said.

Officials for the National Cemetery Administration in Washington, D.C., did not immediately return telephone calls seeking comment.

Veterans Affairs Department spokeswoman Jo Schuda told the Las Vegas Review-Journal last month that the application was being processed but there was no new information on whether it will be approved.

Stewart enlisted in the Army after he graduated from Reno's Wooster High School in 1989 and served in Desert Storm and in Korea. After completing his active duty, he enlisted in the Nevada Army National Guard in 2005 and went to Afghanistan with Task Force Storm.