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Anti-Gay Phelps Clan Challenges Nebraska Flag
Law
by 365Gay.com Newscenter Staff
Posted: August 7, 2007 - 5:00 pm ET
(Omaha, Nebraska) The daughter of homophobic
preacher Fred Phelps has filed a constitutional challenge to a Nebraska law that
makes it a crime to mutilate or trample the American flag.
Shirley Phelps-Roper, who also serves as the
attorney for Phelps' Westboro Baptist Church of Topeka Kansas, says in the
lawsuit that the U.S. Supreme Court has struck down laws forbidding flag
desecration. She says the Nebraska law is unconstitutional.
The lawsuit was filed as a challenge to a charge
against Phelps-Roper of negligent child abuse, contributing to the delinquency
of a minor, flag mutilation and disturbing the peace over an anti-gay protest at
the funeral of a soldier in June.
Phelps-Roper, 49, was arrested in Bellevue,
Nebraska, after her 10-year-old son stomped on an American flag during a protest
at the funeral of a National Guardsman killed in Iraq. (story)
She and about a dozen other members of the
Westboro Baptist Church of Topeka, Kansas carried signs denouncing homosexuality
and stating that military deaths in Iraq were God's retribution for America
being permissive of gays.
A 1977 Nebraska law prohibits trampling a flag.
The protestors brought their own flags to the demonstration.
At the time of her arrest a police officer said
that Phelps-Roper put one flag around her waist.
"The second one was given to a 10-year-old,
who put it on the ground and started kicking it in the area they were
protesting," Officer Joe Gray said.
"It appears the adults weren't stepping on the
flag because they knew it was a violation of the law. But they allowed the
children to go ahead and do that."
If convicted Phelps-Roper could be sent to jail
for three months and fined $500.
Westboro Baptist has 70 members, made up mostly
of Phelps' relatives. Although it professes to be Baptist it is not affiliated
with any national Baptist group.
Westboro operates Web sites including
GodHatesFags and GodHatesAmerica and has been described as a cult.
Phelps and the church first came to national
attention when he organized a protest by his followers outside the 1998 funeral
for Matthew Shepherd, the gay college student who was beaten to death in
Wyoming. The killing, Phelps' protest, and the reaction of townsfolk led to the
play "The Laramie Project."
Church members routinely demonstrate at the
funerals of AIDS victims and most recently at the funerals of soldiers killed in
Iraq.
Westboro Baptist's picketing of soldiers'
funerals led Congress and 34 states, including Kansas, to enact laws attempting
to restrict such protests. It regularly protests at gay and HIV/AIDS events.
In May, members of the church protested at the
funeral of evangelist Jerry Falwell. (story)
About a dozen members of the church carried
placards accusing Falwell of being in league with gays and of cozying up to
Israel.
In attacking Falwell the church says he
"warmly praised Christ-rejecting Jews, pedophile-condoning Catholics,
money-grubbing compromisers, practicing fags like Mel White (of Souflorce), and
backsliders like Billy Graham and Robert Schuler, etc."
©365Gay.com 2007
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