The decapitations will continue until you stop sinning!

[Swallowed_My_Cellphone]

@Jillyvn

I’m with the last bit from Featherlou - every single person within driving distance of that funeral needs to form a human baracade to keep these lunatics out of site of the grieving family.

They are. There’s a Facebook roup and 700 people have signed up many of whom are going to create a “human wall”.

Meanwhile…

@Batshit Crazy Phelper

“The question to my mind [is] whether or not we ought to get them the heck out of that country, because that’s some crazy stuff when you’ve got your officials talking like they are in a back-alley brawl and not government officials who took an oath to obey the law and so forth.”

Uh-huh… They planned on shipping their placards by FedEx and showing up with them. If they say “God Hates Fags” it breaks Canadian law.

Then she gets her panties in a bunch when politician say stuff like: “Your freedom to swing your arm in the air ends when it touches the end of my nose. What these people were going to do was hurtful, harmful and disruptive to the peace, order and good government that we guarantee to our citizens, so they have no place in this country.”

Yup, public officials took an oath to uphold the law, so if that means arresting you douchebags, you can expect it to happen, biatch.

Yup. Sounds like back-alley rhetoric to me.

[FoieGrasIsEvil]

My thing is this: should I be convicted of assault if I were attending a military funeral for say, my cousin whom is currently in Iraq, and these guys were within sight/earshot and disrupting the service?

I can honestly say without an ounce of machismo bravado that I would willingly go to jail by simply submerging myself into their little picket line and swinging my tightly clenched fists at any head or body part that moved (unless it was one of their brainwashed children…then I’d just push them over).

I know the outrage over this group has been done ad nauseum as Marley points out earlier that it’s so bad that he can’t even muster a care anymore (paraphrasing), but…I care.

Whether or not you agree with the war is irrelevant. If someone I’m close to dies in a foreign land in ANY conflict, whether or not it’s popular, if these fag-hating people show up, I’m going to unleash every ounce of my physical anger at their hateful existence on their physical beings.

What are there, like a roving band of 20 people that follow this bullshit? I’m pretty confident in my chances if that scenario played out.

I get very upset because these very same people actually protest actual military funerals (they seek them out!) that grieving family members are present at.

I believe that funerals of any sort are a very private matter, and if celebs can guard their marriages/funerals as invite only, then I should be able to do the same without hiring a cadre of bodyguards to shoo people away. It’s fucking insulting to every fibre of my being that people like this are allowed to congregate anywhere NEAR a funeral for a soldier.

Thank oG for Arlington…I recently attended my Grandpa and Grandma’s funerals there, and thankfully (for them), they were far too old to qualify for their misplaced, stupid, bigoted and homophobic hatred displays.

I am serious. I would like to just shoot those people if I could get away with it, (and if it were legal to say so on the SDMB… )
the world would be better off.

Protest is healthy and a part of our culture as a nation, but this is beyod the pale, and I can still very much muster the outrage I feel to stamp these motherfuckers out permanently.

I say “God Hates People That Hate People” should be their motto.

[Kat]

I wonder how they would react if someone contacted them to tell them it’s just The Gathering…

I have a link to some slash around here somewhere.

[Cat_Whisperer]

You know, it just occurred to me - maybe what we should be telling them is to come back to protest in Winnipeg in, say, five months. We dare ya.

[Sampiro]

What’s the status on that multimillion dollar verdict? Any chance they’ll get bankrupted by it?

Also, IANAL and IANA Canadian, but I do know that Canada’s hate-speech and freedom-of-speech laws are different from America’s. Do the Phelps risk incarceration by going there (please please please… and Canada- as a taxpaying United Statesian I give you permission to send them to our summer place in Guantanamo!).

[Muffin]

Yes, if they use the God Hates Fags signs or otherwise promote hatred against an identifiable group. No, if they simply mill about and say that god hates Canada. There is an exemption from prosecution for legitimate religious discussion, but they are so far beyond the pale, that I don’t think they will be protected by the exemption. See post 146 http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=10077691&postcount=146 and also our Criminal Code at s. 319 http://laws.justice.gc.ca/en/ShowDo...alse#codese:319

[Frank]

@Swallowed My Cellphone

If they say “God Hates Fags” it breaks Canadian law.

That’s what I was thinking. Would it expose them to civil damages? That’d be cute, since that’s how they have supported themselves in the U.S.

They won’t show up anyway. Just ignore them. They are, at this point, merely attention whores.

[FoieGrasIsEvil]

@Frank

That’s what I was thinking. Would it expose them to civil damages? That’d be cute, since that’s how they have supported themselves in the U.S.

They won’t show up anyway. Just ignore them. They are, at this point, merely attention whores.

See, I do and don’t support this position. It’s easy to say until it’s your brother or Dad that’s been killed in a war, and no, it doesn’t make it any less painful when it’s you and yours…unless these jokers show up to make a mockery of your deceased loved one’s funeral.

I’m sorry I am belaboring the point, I’m sure these guys have been hated and pitted before, but to me it is never tiresome to put these types of idiots out there as a representation of the worst possible outcome of freedom of speech in the USA, and again, I reiterate my desire to maul them until they are dead.

But hey, on a brighter note, things look good on the Georgian/Russian front…

[Muffin]

@featherlou

They don’t stand much of a chance of upsetting the mourning family, anyway, since every mobile person in Winnipeg plans to come between them and the family if they do show up.

Unfortunately, I’m only going as far as Kenora this weekend.

[dropzone]

@FoieGrasIsEvil

My thing is this: should I be convicted of assault if I were attending a military funeral for say, my cousin whom is currently in Iraq, and these guys were within sight/earshot and disrupting the service?

I can honestly say without an ounce of machismo bravado that I would willingly go to jail by simply submerging myself into their little picket line and swinging my tightly clenched fists at any head or body part that moved (unless it was one of their brainwashed children…then I’d just push them over).

Go for a jury trial and you could end up a folk hero who only saw jail long enough for somebody to post bail. That is, if the police saw you do it and I think their vision might be impaired by the melee around you. It’d be hard to make a positive ID, y’know.

Oh yeah, some of you think you live someplace where every cop is like that Mountie in “Due South.” :rolleyes:

[Bookkeeper]

@FoieGrasIsEvil

My thing is this: should I be convicted of assault if I were attending a military funeral for say, my cousin whom is currently in Iraq, and these guys were within sight/earshot and disrupting the service?

I can honestly say without an ounce of machismo bravado that I would willingly go to jail by simply submerging myself into their little picket line and swinging my tightly clenched fists at any head or body part that moved (unless it was one of their brainwashed children…then I’d just push them over).

Not a good idea. Aside from the fact that actual physical opposition merely validates their saintly martyrdom in their own eyes, it’s my understanding that their activities are at least partly funded by awards from the civil suits they file against people who have assaulted them, are thinking of assaulting them, or are on the same planet as people who have once dreamed of assaulting them. There’s a reason ol’ Phred made most of the clan go to law school. You don’t want to be legally compelled to fund their activities.

[FoieGrasIsEvil]

@Bookkeeper

Not a good idea. Aside from the fact that actual physical opposition merely validates their saintly martyrdom in their own eyes, it’s my understanding that their activities are at least partly funded by awards from the civil suits they file against people who have assaulted them, are thinking of assaulting them, or are on the same planet as people who have once dreamed of assaulting them. There’s a reason ol’ Phred made most of the clan go to law school. You don’t want to be legally compelled to fund their activities.

That’s probably true.

2 Things:

I was guilty of PWI last night, and

I’d be stooping to their level.

I suppose engaging them in an, er, rational debate is probably out of the question, too?

[OttoDaFe]

@FoieGrasIsEvil

That’s probably true.

2 Things:

I was guilty of PWI last night, and

I’d be stooping to their level.

I suppose engaging them in an, er, rational debate is probably out of the question, too?

I don’t think “rational” and “Phelps” are compatible concepts. They don’t belong in the same time zone, let alone the same post.

[Baker]

Here’s the morning headline here in Topeka Kansas, the city I call home. (And so does the WBC)

http://www.cjonline.com/stories/080908/loc_316247506.shtml

Hey, if you have to resort to such subterfuge to speak your message, doesn’t that automatically kind of brand it as hate speech, so they can be arrested and deported?

[Gorsnak]

@Baker

Here’s the morning headline here in Topeka Kansas, the city I call home. (And so does the WBC)

http://www.cjonline.com/stories/080908/loc_316247506.shtml

Hey, if you have to resort to such subterfuge to speak your message, doesn’t that automatically kind of brand it as hate speech, so they can be arrested and deported?

No, not really. Thing is, rules covering entry into a country are rather different from the rules in place once you’re in the country. Just for example, customs officials don’t need a warrant to search your trunk. So ol’ Doris told the border officials to turn the Phelpses back (good on him, never expected to be cheering on Stock, but credit where credit’s due) because allowing people in is pretty much discretionary. But once they’re in, you can’t arrest them unless they’re actually doing something illegal. As has been stated, the “God hates fags” signs will probably get them arrested under s.319 though it would make for an interesting trial, but more generic signs and just generally being assholes would require sketchy interpretations of things like unlawful assembly by-laws or whatever.

Hopefully the Winnipeg cops will arrest them based on some ancient bylaw prohibiting neon colours at funerals, then release them the next day with an apology for not realizing the statute was repealed in 1921. So sorry. Some people are just begging for a little abuse of police authority.

[Baker]

Thanks, Gorsnak, that was very informative! Consider ignorance fought.

[Lust4Life]

To be honest you seem to have so many nut job religous cults over there that I’m starting to see whereDer Trihsis coming from and am even starting to agree with him.
Religions of whatever brand appear to be based on what part of society do you hate?

Over here recently we had a big Anglican Bishops conference with senior churchmen from all over the world attending.
And what were the major (and very heated)debates over?

Gays in the church and women Archbishops or somesuch(Not too hot on the rank structure).

We’ve got drugs and violent crime at epidemic level,Islamist terrorists,several wars in the M/E,global warming,the credit crunch,banks failing,AIDs and Mel Bloody Gibson making movies at the drop of a hat and I’m expected to lie awake at night worrying about two totally irrelevant to the real world non events.

No wonder that over here apathy rules when it comes to the national religion,and a good job too.

Sorry about the hijack,I’ll shut up now.

[Cat_Whisperer]

Possibly one good thing that will come out of all this is that Canadians might become more aware of the religious nuttery going on in the US. I don’t know how useful that will be, but being aware of a problem is better than not being aware of it.

[flodnak]

Does this mean the decapitations will continue until morals improve?

[Baker]

@Lust4Life

Over here recently we had a big Anglican Bishops conference with senior churchmen from all over the world attending.

And what were the major (and very heated)debates over?

Gays in the church and women Archbishops or somesuch(Not too hot on the rank structure).

Ah, yes, the Lambeth Conference. Bishop Gene Robinson(bishop of New Hampshire, and out of the closet) and Presiding Bishop Katherine Schiori, head of the Episcopal church in the United States are probably who you are referencing.

Presiding Bishop is the title we Americans give to the head of our church. I understand most other Anglican national churches use Archbishop. She’s the only woman to head a national church, and I understand some of the really conservative ones, such as the African denominations that don’t even ordain women, are steamed about it.

As a Christian I should pray for their understanding. As a female Episcopalian, I want to tell them to sit on it.