{"id":3018,"date":"2011-04-25T16:00:52","date_gmt":"2011-04-25T20:00:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/news\/?p=3018"},"modified":"2011-04-25T15:49:25","modified_gmt":"2011-04-25T19:49:25","slug":"bill-would-limit-military-funeral-protests","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2011\/04\/bill-would-limit-military-funeral-protests","title":{"rendered":"Bill Would Limit Military Funeral Protests"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>By KEVIN ECKSTROM<\/strong><br \/>\n<em>c. 2011 Religion News Service<\/em> <\/p>\n<p>WASHINGTON (RNS) A bipartisan group of senators has introduced a bill that would make it harder for protesters from a fringe Baptist church in Topeka, Kansas, to protest outside military funerals.<\/p>\n<p>The Sanctity of Eternal Rest for Veterans Act, introduced by Sen. Olympia Snowe, R-Maine, comes in the wake of the Supreme Court&#8217;s 8-1 decision in March upholding the right of Westboro Baptist Church to picket military funerals.<\/p>\n<p>The bill would increase the &#8220;quiet time&#8221; before and after services from one hour to two hours, and expand the protest buffer zone around a funeral from 150 feet to 300 feet. The buffer zone around access routes to and from the funeral would also grow from 300 feet to 500 feet.<\/p>\n<p>Slain soldiers&#8217; families &#8220;have earned the right to bury their loved ones in peace,&#8221; Snowe said in a statement. &#8220;The SERVE Act strikes a balance between the sanctity of a funeral service and the right to free speech.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Westboro protesters have demonstrated outside military funerals with signs that say &#8220;Thank God for Dead Soldiers,&#8221; calling U.S. casualties in Iraq and Afghanistan divine punishment for tolerance of homosexuality.<\/p>\n<p>The bill, which has seven Democratic co-sponsors and six Republicans, is also supported by military groups including AMVETS, Veterans of Foreign Wars and the Military Order of the Purple Heart.<\/p>\n<p>Attorney Margie J. Phelps, daughter of Westboro founder Fred Phelps, has said her small church stands ready to &#8220;quadruple&#8221; its number of funeral protests.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>By KEVIN ECKSTROM c. 2011 Religion News Service WASHINGTON (RNS) A bipartisan group of senators has introduced a bill that would make it harder for protesters from a fringe Baptist church in Topeka, Kansas, to protest outside military funerals. The Sanctity of Eternal Rest for Veterans Act, introduced by Sen. Olympia Snowe, R-Maine, comes in&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":345,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fbia_status":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[8,5,9],"tags":[546,547,549,2213,551,93,2202,550,123,548,552],"class_list":["post-3018","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","category-politics","category-rns","tag-bill","tag-funeral","tag-kansas","tag-military","tag-olympia-snowe","tag-protest","tag-rns","tag-sanctity-of-eternal-rest-for-veterans-act","tag-supreme-court","tag-topeka","tag-westboro-baptist-church"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Bill Would Limit Military Funeral Protests<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2011\/04\/bill-would-limit-military-funeral-protests\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Bill Would Limit Military Funeral Protests\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"By KEVIN ECKSTROM c. 2011 Religion News Service WASHINGTON (RNS) A bipartisan group of senators has introduced a bill that would make it harder for protesters from a fringe Baptist church in Topeka, Kansas, to protest outside military funerals. 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