House acts to restrict funeral protests

JEFFERSON CITY — The Missouri House of Representatives overwhelmingly passed a bill on Thursday to place a buffer zone between protestors and funerals.

The bill, which would make protesting within 300 feet of any church, funeral or cemetery a misdemeanor, passed 153-2.

“I think everybody feels, when you die, that is not a time to allow people to campaign or protest,” said House Speaker Rod Jetton, R-Marble Hill. “It’s just not polite; it’s just not right; it’s rude; it’s wrong.”

Momentum for the legislation gathered after the Rev. Fred Phelps’ Kansas-based Westboro Baptist Church protested at the August funeral of a St. Joseph man killed in the war in Iraq.

On his Web site, Phelps and his supporters say they protest soldiers’ funerals to highlight what they see as God’s vengeance against the United States for accommodating homosexuality.

Rep. Jim Avery, R-St. Louis County, and Rep. Will Kraus, R-Jackson County, fought in the war last year. Avery said it was important for somebody with his perspective to speak in favor of the bill.

“I thought it was important to have a voice of somebody who had actually been there,” Avery said. “The perspective that (Kraus) and I have isn’t a perspective that anybody else would understand.”

All five Boone County representatives voted for the bill. Minority Floor Leader Jeff Harris, D-Columbia, said it was appropriate to show support for soldiers who sacrificed their lives for America.

“It is very inappropriate for these extremist groups to protest at these funerals,” Harris said. “This is a step to prevent those protests.”

Avery said he was glad to see the bill pass but disappointed that the vote wasn’t unanimous.

“But I know everybody has to vote their conscience,” he said.

Two representatives — Rep. Terry Young, D-Jackson County, and Rep. Tom Villa, D-St. Louis City, voted against the bill; Rep. Jeanette Oxford, D-St. Louis City, voted “present.”

Oxford said she would have voted against the bill if she could have made contact with the bill’s sponsor, Rep. Martin Rucker, D-St. Joseph, before the House went into session.

“Anytime we don’t protect the freedom of speech of our opponents, we are setting ourselves up for a future which someone decides that our freedom of speech is expendable,” Oxford said.

Although Oxford said she “feels like she needs to shower” every time she encounters Phelps’ group picketing at church and political meetings, she said people could find ways to react to protestors without limiting freedom of speech.

She used an example of what counterprotestors did in response to picketers at Matthew Shepard’s funeral.

“His neighbors wore angel costumes with big wings and stood between the protestors and the family to block the view of the protestors,” Oxford said.

Anthony Phillips, president of the mid-Missouri chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union, said the organization stands ready to assist any group if civil liberties might have been infringed.

Although Phelps’ group has not contacted the ACLU, there are concerns about the bill’s vague language, Phillips said.

“If the bill blocks access to political expression on public sidewalks, there might be constitutional issues,” he said.

He gave the example of the Communications Decency Act, a bill passed by Congress in 1996 that would have regulated obscene and indecent speech on the Internet, as a piece of legislation with overwhelming support that didn’t pass constitutional muster.

“Just because there’s overwhelming support for a bill doesn’t make it constitutional,” Phillips said.

Harris said he thinks the bill is constitutional.

“My concern — and, I think, the concern of the legislative body — was to make sure we honor and respect those people who’ve made the ultimate sacrifice for America,” he said. “And that’s what this legislation is about.”

The House voted 152-2 to activate an emergency clause for the bill, which means the legislation would go into effect immediately after Gov. Matt Blunt signs it. The bill now heads to the Missouri Senate.