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Take a look at this article and tell me where freedom of speech is bending the limits. Do you know anyone who could write a Bill in Tennessee to prevent protests at Funerals? I am a Soldier, and now I would rather have a privet funnel not affiliated with the Military after seeing this article. I really feel Homicidal right now and wont to burn down their Church, and I am a Christian too.

 

Please give me your thoughts on this Article below. I am so depressed and disappointed that we can not let this go on in our Country. Can we please stop these disrespectful protest at Military Funerals before I die?

 

http://news.yahoo.com/s/csm/20100331/ts_csm/291560

 

PS: I also have been working with the IG at Fort Campbell to resolve my other issues and they are Finally Medically Retiring me. However, I still am having major problems with getting the right medical attention I need, and other Soldiers here at Fort Campbell are having the same kinds of problems. We definably need Health Care Reform in the Military for Family and Soldiers. It’s really bad Sir. You would be so disappointed if you just knew half of what I have been through or seen in our Military health care. Anyways, I am feeling better but scared for what the future has for me. It’s not like every business would want time hire someone who was diagnosed with PTSD, and I think that is why the article above needs to be taken very seriously. I have to be honest. If I had witnessed my friends get disrespected at their Funerals: then I have not doubt that I would be imprisoned for Murder. This is because I seen my friends die in front of me by the enemy, and anyone who protest at Funerals is a terrorist to me, so I do believe that letting these kinds of hate crimes of protesting go on will start a revolution of new gangs to kill people who hate. Mine would just be from re-living experiences with PTSD, and thats why it’s not ethical. You just can’t yell bomb and get away with it, so why in the hell are we letting protesters. Freedom of Speech is not designed to hate your country or Fallen Soldiers. You can not hold a sign that says Niger, because you will get your ass beat. You hold a sign that says, “Thank God for dead soldiers” at a Funeral, then your dead wrong. Keep up the great work Congressman Duncan. Your vote counts for me.

 

http://news.yahoo.com/s/csm/20100331/ts_csm/291560

 

Please help me get a Bill Passed in Legislative to stop these very wrongfully done hate crimes:

SGT Franklin Delano Jeffries II, BS

US ARMY FILMMAKER

 

—-Article From Yahoo below…

 

By Gordon Lubold – Tue Mar 30, 8:09 pm ET

 

Washington – A father of a Marine killed in Iraq says he won’t pay the legal fees of a protest group who picketed at his son’s funeral in 2006 – at least not until he hears from the US Supreme Court on the matter.

[Update from The Newsroom: Bill O'Reilly has offered to foot the bill.]

Albert Snyder, whose son, Lance Cpl. Matthew Snyder, was killed inIraq, learned Friday that a federal appeals court is requiring him to pay more than $16,000 in legal fees to the Westboro Baptist Church, aChristian fundamentalist group that demonstrates during military funerals to gain attention for its antigovernment, antihomosexual message. The group rallied at Matthew Snyder’s funeral in March 2006 in Westminster, Md., chanting antigay slogans and carrying signs such as “Thank God for dead soldiers,” says Albert Snyder’s attorney, Sean Summers.

The group was protesting about 30 feet from the church’s main entrance, and Mr. Snyder had to enter through a separate entrance, Mr. Summers says.

Snyder subsequently sued the Westboro group for emotional distressand won a $5 million judgment. But on appeal, the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals reversed, finding in favor of protecting the protesters’ free-speech rights. About three weeks ago, the Supreme Court agreed to take the case and is expected to hear it in the fall. (Last year, the high court had declined to take up the issue.) Meanwhile, the circuit court has ordered Snyder, a salesman, to pay the church’s court expenses.

Snyder, of York, Pa., told Fox News on Tuesday that he would not pay the Westboro Baptist Church “until I hear from the Supreme Court.”

“It’s fair to say that they are not getting any Christmas cards from Mr. Snyder,” adds Summers, in a phone interview. “He obviously thinks they are despicable and doesn’t understand why they would target him.”

The Westboro group has been protesting at military members’ funerals for years. The church leader, Fred Phelps, preaches that American deaths in Iraq and Afghanistan are punishment for the nation’s tolerance of homosexuality. (He was among those banned from Britain last year for fostering hatred or extremism.) The protests have nothing to do with the fallen service members’ sexual orientation, and the church says its protests are held within a “lawful distance” of the funerals.

Ultimately, say some, the church protests are a matter of constitutionally protected free speech.

“I really don’t see that [the protest] was a violation of the First Amendment [principles]. It was a violation of decorum and good taste and all sorts of other things, but not a violation of the First Amendment,” saysCharles Gittins, a civilian lawyer in Virginia.

But Summers argues that his client’s right to peaceful assembly and freedom of religion were infringed by the protests and that, unlike at a public park where people are free to express themselves, a funeral setting draws a “captive audience” that requires attendees to be in a particular location – they can’t simply walk away.

Westboro Baptist Church, which is based in Kansas, plans to protest in Florida on Wednesday, outside a funeral for a Marine killed in Helmand Province in southern Afghanistan on March 22.

“Military funerals have become pagan orgies of idolatrous blasphemy, where they pray to the dunghill gods of Sodom and play taps to a fallen fool,” states a press release posted on the church’s website, announcing the rally at a memorial service for Lance Cpl. Justin Wilson. At the bottom of the press release are printed the words “Thank God for IEDs,” referring to the roadside bombs that have killed thousands of troops in both wars.