Thursday, March 10, 2011

Heroic Massachusetts defiance of the Supreme court?

Hardly:
"A Supreme Court ruling upholding the right of a controversial Kansas church to picket military funerals will not prevent Massachusetts authorities from enforcing a state law keeping protesters at least 500 feet away from a funeral service, Attorney General Martha Coakley said.

“This Supreme Court decision makes it no more likely . . . that there would be a successful challenge to our statute,’’ Coakley said by phone Friday, adding that she will advise police to continue to enforce a 500-foot buffer zone around funerals to keep protesters from disrupting them.

Source

Apparatchik Coakley is just trying to inflate her own importance here. In the case heard by SCOTUS, the picketers complied with a police request that they picket 1,000 feet from the church during the funeral service -- and the court quoted that as a factor in its judgment. So the Massachusetts law adds nothing to that. By setting a standard, the law would in fact seem to allow Fred Phelps and his gang to get closer! Martha didn't mention that!

6 comments:

Stan B said...

the picketers complied with a police request that they picket 1,000 feet from the church during the funeral service

Thanks for the reminder - I thought there was such a buffer between the funeral and the picketers, and it makes no sense that the Supreme Court would not address the "distance" issue if it were a factor.

"Time and Place" restrictions are often upheld, provided they do not constitute an "undue burden."

Anonymous said...

Have no fear. Martha Coakley will get one right someday. Maybe.

Anonymous said...

i would not want this scum so called church within 500 miles of me. maybe a bunch of gay groups need to picket their temple of hate.

Anonymous said...

With all the chaos this group has caused, have you noticed there hasn't been one word from the notoriously vocal gay activists? These are the people who whine, rant, march, and protest at the drop of a hat, yet they have nothing to say about this anti-gay church group? Hmm...

Anonymous said...

The gay groups probably don't react because the "message" of that church group is too stupid to warrant their attention, and they presume everyone else thinks the same.

Anonymous said...

I'm not a real Hells Angles fan but would love to see them pull up on the picketers and dish out an ass kicking so bad they would hide under their bed everytime they hear a Harley Davison. :) Stormewaters