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Westboro Baptist Church Files Challenge To Missouri City's Funeral Picketing Law

By Howard M. Friedman

Last week, Shirley Phelps-Roper, daughter of the founder of the Westboro Baptist Church, filed a lawsuit in a Missouri federal district court challenging the constitutionality of a St. Joseph, Missouri ordinance that bans picketing "in front of or about" a church, cemetery or funeral home within one hour on either side of a funeral ceremony. Westboro Baptist Church members are known for picketing funerals of Iraq and Afghanistan war veterans, carrying signs proclaiming that war deaths are divine punishment for U.S. tolerance of homosexuality. The St. Joseph (MO) News-Press, reporting on the case, says that the ordinance was enacted after Westboro members picketed an Iraq veteran's funeral in 2005. The complaint (full text) in Phelps-Roper v. City of St. Joseph, Missouri, (WD MO, filed 1/7/2009), alleges that the St. Joseph ordinance violates the speech, association and free exercise protections of the First amendment.

The complaint reveals an interesting police tactic used by St. Joseph police in 2006. They lined up to block Westboro demonstrators' view of a funeral procession in order to prevent the demonstration from violating the ordinance.

The filing of this lawsuit came just as the U.S. 8th Circuit Court of Appeals in Phelps-Roper v. Nixon, (8th Cir., Jan. 7, 2009) denied an en banc rehearing in a case that granted a preliminary injunction prohibiting enforcement of the Missouri state funeral picketing law against Westboro Baptist Church members. (See prior related posting.) [Thanks to Steven Sheinberg for the lead.]

Full post as published by Religion Clause on January 13, 2009 (boomark / email).