Lawmakers bolster funeral protest law

JEFFERSON CITY — The House approved a bill Thursday designed to reinforce a ban on protesting at funerals.

The backup measure is meant to make sure picketing at funerals continues to be illegal if the courts throw out a bill that became law earlier this year. Members of a Kansas-based church have pledged to challenge the new law.

The bill approved last month bars protests near any funeral from an hour before until an hour after the service, but some lawmakers worry the courts might find it is unconstitutionally vague. On Thursday, the House approved a similar bill that requires protesters to stay 300 feet away from the ceremony.

Violating the distance ban would be a misdemeanor with penalties of up to six months in jail and a fine of up to $500.

Rep. Barbara Fraser said it’s important to have a fallback position because the original version pushes the envelope on limiting free speech.

St. Joseph lawmakers Martin Rucker, a freshman Democrat in the House, and Charlie Shields, a Republican and Senate majority leader, filed proposals to bar protests near funeral ceremonies after members of Westboro Baptist Church picketed outside the funeral of a St. Joseph soldier killed in Iraq. Church members contend soldiers are dying in Iraq as vengeance from God because the United States tolerates gays.

Shields’ bill cleared the Senate, but the House later made the protest limitation more specific by setting a distance requirement. To compromise, lawmakers passed the first bill with an agreement to pass a second version adding the distance restriction. That bill now moves to the Senate.

Rucker said he believes setting a specific time but not a distance limit would have been fine.

“I don’t think it’s right for me to jump through these hoops when I haven’t lost yet,” he said.