In Tuscon, Arizona there has been the shooting rampage where 6 people were killed by Jared Lee Loughner and Democrat congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords and more than a dozen others badly wounded. As the families in Tucson mourn their dead relatives they find that they will also have to cope with protests are their private funerals. The protests are being staged by the Westboro Baptist Church. This is the tiny tiny group (approx 70 people who are pretty much all members of a single extended family of the head of the Church) who also stage protests at the funerals of Aids sufferers and are anti-gay, anti-catholic, anti-American, anti-just-about-anything.

In response, politicians in Arizona are rushing through new laws to make it an offence to protest within 300 ft of a funeral. They do this because they can’t think of anything else but new laws and rules and guidelines in response to any issue. Politicians can’t think any other way.

Even if they manage to bring in this law it won’t stop the Westboro Baptist Church as they say that they will probably do their protest from 1000 ft away from the actual funeral but still close enough to make an impact on those attending the funeral. Probably because it’s on the route to the cemetery/church. And the media will still film them even if they were 1 mile away as it makes for good TV to have a protest shown on the news.

And then having brought in these new laws they are pretty unlikely to repeal them – ever. What they will do is use them in new situations. Sot this year it’s to stop protests at funerals. With a few minor modifications which probably doesn’t need a full vote by the legislature it could be used to stop protests at courts, or chemists, or vets, or abortion clinics. And then it could be changed a tiny bit more and used to stop certain groups of people. Before you know it it’s no longer the land of the free.

What politicians need to understand is that sometimes if you had a bit of imagination and a society that worked without big government you could handle such situations without the need for new laws. And this is what is happening in Tuscon. A group of people have decided to fight counter the Westboro Baptists not with violence or laws but with peace. What they have come up with is angel wings. Giant ones. 10 ft high ones. The idea was orginally used at the funeral of Matthew Shepard in 1999. The plan is to have supporters wear them and provide a shield between the mourners and the protesters. It won’t stop the noise from the protesters but at least the mourners have something nice to look at and they will be comforted in the knowledge that others are looking after them. For the Baptists it’s probably the worst method as the media will film the Angel Wings and not the Baptists and given that the main reason the Baptists protest is for publicity they will be starved of it.

No new laws necessary, just society working at doing what it’s best at when not being controlled by the big know-all state.

SBML

Jiks January 13, 2011 at 17:43

“What politicians need to understand is that sometimes if you had a bit of
imagination and a society that worked without big government you could handle
such situations without the need for new laws.”

What we have to understand is that politicians live to pass laws that
restrict our freedoms and will not waste such a wonderful opportunity as a
tragedy to do exactly that.

lenko January 13, 2011 at 11:10

These guys are sick, though there is almost certainly a money angle to it
all, as Fred Phelps and eleven of his children are all lawyers. I posted on
this three days ago, and you can see their really SICK press release on http://dailymoaner.com/?p=4320

My understanding is that yesterday they changed their minds, and will not
now protest. Maybe someone hinted that it might be THEIR funeral too.

JuliaM January 13,
2011 at 09:17

I rather prefer the option one Hell’s Angel chapter suggested – let them
ride as ‘honour guard’ to drown out the shouts of this mob of loonies.

I suspect they had other plans if that didn’t work too…

Derek Reynolds
January 13, 2011 at 12:28

I think HA would relish the opportunity.

PT January 13, 2011 at 09:02

“What they have come up with is angel wings. Giant ones. 10 ft high
ones.”
….last seen hang-gliding at an altitude of 1200 feet over
Sacramento…
(Sorry to introduce a facetious note, couldn’t resist it.)

PT Barnum January 13, 2011 at 08:54

Having seen footage of the original angel wings action, I’m delighted it’s
being revived for the threatened protest in Arizona. Set against the vile,
in-your-face incoherence of the God Hates Fags Church, it is an elegant
expression of compassion. As you rightly say, laws solve nothing. People
acting together provide solutions.

Caedmon’s
Cat January 13, 2011 at 08:47

If nutjob outfits like the Westboro Baptists didn’t exist, it would
certainly be necessary for the state to invent them. The mentality of such
groups is a godsend for any control-freak establishment, since they provide
the justification for a tighter legislative stranglehold on the personal
liberties of the innocent majority. On a plate.