Westboro Baptist Nuts Coming to Protest Soldier's Funeral Tonight
Categories: Bad Ideas
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| How to identify the creeps that will be showing up in Fort Pierce tonight |
Westboro Baptist "Church" Pastor Fred Phelps tells New Times that the church's minions are coming to Fort Pierce tonight to protest the funeral of 24-year-old U.S. Army Spc. Jordan Christopher Schumann, who was killed July 5 in Afghanistan.
Schumann and his fellow soldiers were in a vehicle when they drove over an improvised explosive device while on patrol in Afghanistan's Paktia province.
Two other soldiers were also killed in the blast, according to the Department of Defense.
There was a viewing yesterday for Schumann that was undisturbed.
The St. Lucie County Sheriff's Office says there will be deputies at the funeral tonight to maintain the peace, and it's been reported that people were already planning on trying to counter the Westboro kooks in case they show up.
The funeral is at 7 p.m. at the Westside Baptist Church in Fort Pierce.
Phelps says they will begin their protest around 6 or 6:30 p.m.
The Westboro Baptist loons had planned the protest after State Rep. Pat Rooney announced he was introducing a revised version of his military funeral buffer-zone bill next legislative session.
Rooney, from Palm Beach Gardens, announced a few weeks ago that he's introducing the bill to create a 500-foot buffer zone between "funeral services of soldiers, first responders, political figures, and minors" and people like the Westboro Baptist goofballs who try to protest it.
He tried to pass the bill in the last legislative session, with the same exact language except for a 1.5-mile buffer zone. It died in the Criminal Justice Subcommittee.
Several states have been introducing funeral buffer-zone regulations in state legislatures since a U.S. Supreme Court decision in March that threw out an $11 million judgment to the family of a Maryland man who died in Iraq, and his funeral was protested by the Westboro weirdos.
Even though other states have laws similar to Rooney's proposal on the books, Phelps still thinks it would be in defiance of the recent U.S. Supreme Court decision.
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