Wednesday, January 18, 2012
Listen to audio from the recent federal court hearing for Phelps v. the City of Manchester. Plus, Judy DeRose filed a motion to dismiss her employment discrimination lawsuit against the City of Manchester.
The United States Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals made available the audio of the oral arguments presented in downtown St. Louis by attorneys in the Phelps Roper v. City of Manchester case Jan. 9. (You can listen to the audio of the case in the PDF/Video portion of the story) In 2010, the Westboro Baptist Church (WBC), with the help of the American Civil Liberties Union, challenged a city of Manchester ordinance restricting protests or pickets at funerals. The Westboro Baptist Church regularly pickets military funerals with signs such as "thank God for dead soldiers." "I think we all can agree that defending our ordinance is the right thing to do. The cost of defending the case has been absorbed by our insurance company," Gunn said. He …
Monday, January 9, 2012
Monday, a panel of judges questioned whether or not Manchester’s law regulating funeral protests was too broad and unconstitutional.
Monday morning, at the Thomas F. Eagleton Courthouse in downtown St. Louis, attorneys representing both sides in the Shirley Phelps v. City of Manchester lawsuit answered questions and made their case before a full panel of judges of the Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals. No ruling was made at Monday's hearing that comes after a court ruled the city of Manchester's ordinance to ban protests within 300 feet of a funeral was unconstitutional. In 2010, the Westboro Baptist Church (WBC), with the help of the American Civil Liberties Union, challenged a city of Manchester ordinance restricting protests or pickets at funerals. The Westboro Baptist Church regularly pickets military funerals with signs such as "thank God for dead soldiers." …
Thursday, December 8, 2011
A full panel of judges will hear the case Phelps v. the City of Manchester after a three-panel judge had ruled in favor of Phelps earlier this year.
The Eighth District Court of Appeals has accepted the City of Manchester’s petition to re-hear the case Phelps v. the City of Manchester before a full panel of judges. The Westboro Baptists church had sued Manchester for a city ordinance restricting protests or pickets at funerals. In October of 2010, members of the Phelps family, who head the Westboro Baptist Church, along with the American Civil Liberties Union, filed a lawsuit against a city of Manchester’s ordinance that prohibited protests or picketing near a funeral. The ordinance was enacted in 2007 in response to previous Westboro Baptist Church funeral protests elsewhere in Missouri and in the country. The church, according to their website (Warning: Strong Language), regularly …
John Messmer
12:06 pm on Thursday, January 12, 2012
But Mr. Dennis, you write that "free speech doesn't mean you can infringe on others exercising their rights.....". But what "rights" are Westboro infringing upon? The right to attend a funeral in peace? The right not to have your feelings hurt? Great ideas but those aren't fundamental rights - and they're certainly not rights protected in the Constitution. I abhor what this church is doing as … more ›