strib: (Minnesota) Senate approves restrictions on funeral protests

Last update: March 16, 2006 – 12:21 PM

Senate approves restrictions on funeral protests

Only Sen. Becky Lourey, the mother of a fallen soldier, dissented from the 58-1 vote. The bill may go to a conference committee.

Conrad Defiebre, Star Tribune

With a lone dissenting vote from Sen. Becky Lourey, the Senate approved restrictions Thursday on funeral protests such as one that marred the burial of a fallen soldier last month in Anoka. The vote of 58 to 1 came a week after the House unanimously passed similar, but not identical, legislation. A conference committee will probably have to work out differences between the two bills.

Lourey, DFL-Kerrick, a candidate for governor and the mother of a soldier killed in Iraq last year, said she opposes the bill as an infringement of the free speech right her son died for. No protesters showed up for the burial of Army helicopter pilot Matthew Lourey last June at Arlington National Cemetery in Virginia, but the senator said even that would not have changed her mind.

(snip)

She suggested that a few changes in the state's disorderly conduct statute would suffice to protect funerals from improper disruption. The issue surged to the top of the Legislature's agenda after protesters from a church in Topeka, Kan., noisily picketed the funeral of Army Cpl. Andrew Kemple Feb. 23 in Anoka. The protesters contend that God is killing U.S. soldiers in Iraq because of the nation's tolerance for homosexuality.

(snip)

Meanwhile, in Washington, D.C., U.S. Rep. Mark Kennedy, R-Minn., said he will seek to ban demonstrations at military funerals at federal cemeteries as part of a defense appropriations bill. In a news release, Kennedy noted that Kemple's funeral in his district was "perverted by a hateful display."


http://www.startribune.com/587/story/311537.html

political stripe would have the decorum to stay away without the threat of authority, but we clearly know that isn't the case.

However, if strengthening/adapting existing law would cover it, I'm on Senator Lourey's side. She certainly has the credentials (sadly) to speak wisdom on the issue.

It really gets the freepers riled up

I couldn't care any less if I rile a freeper or not. They aren't worth my time.

Edit: grammar.

Its like mooning the king

I doubt if the law would stand in Supreme Court (yes even this one).