Omaha, USA - The Westboro Baptist Church’s next stage will be a Nebraska court case on charges that include flag mutilation.
Members of the Topeka-based church couldn’t be happier.
“Our message has exploded all over the world,” a delighted Shirley Phelps-Roper said Thursday, a day after the church was ordered in Maryland to pay $10.9 million to a grieving father whose son’s military funeral was the target of the congregation’s frequent picketing campaigns.
The church members think that U.S. deaths in the Iraq war are punishment for the nation’s tolerance of homosexuality. They typically carry signs with slogans such as “Thank God for dead soldiers” and “God hates fags.”
Phelps-Roper, 50, is scheduled to appear at a Sarpy County Court hearing Monday on charges of flag mutilation, negligent child abuse, contributing to the delinquency of a minor and disturbing the peace.
The charges were filed after Phelps-Roper allowed her 10-year-old son to stand on the flag while protesting at a Bellevue soldier’s funeral in June.
Followers say they are entitled to protest at soldiers’ funerals under the First Amendment, which guarantees freedom of speech and religion.
Albert Snyder thinks otherwise. He sued the Westboro church after a protest last year at the funeral of his son, a Marine who was killed in Iraq. Snyder alleged that the protests intruded on what should have been a private ceremony and sullied his memory of the event.
Nebraska and at least 37 other states have adopted laws restricting how close protesters can get to funerals. Those laws were at least partly inspired by the Westboro church’s protests. And Congress has passed a law prohibiting such protests at federal cemeteries.
Snyder thinks that the First Amendment will survive just fine. After his Maryland court victory, he was defiant, promising to run the church out of business to make sure that other grieving families don’t have to put up with demonstrators at funerals.
“I don’t expect to collect $10 million, but I do intend to collect everything they have,” Snyder said in an interview.
Snyder, 52, a salesman from York, Pa., said he celebrated the verdict by getting some sleep. Under a gag order the judge imposed, he was barred from speaking to reporters during the seven-day trial in U.S. District Court in Baltimore.
“I want to spread the word about these people,” he said. “I want other people to try to come forward if they’ve been terrorized by these people. I basically want to shut them down.”
Snyder is going very public with his fight. He has created a legal fund and set up a Web site — www.matthewsnyder.org — and is urging the public to write to elected officials urging them to pass laws that would prevent picketing at funerals.
Leaders of the 71-member Westboro church, founded by Fred Phelps Sr. in 1955, sounded equally defiant and promised to appeal the verdict.
“In his compassion, for the last 17 years, God has sent his servants — the apple of his eye — from this humble little church to warn you daily to flee from the wrath to come,” the church said in a statement.
As Snyder’s case works its way through an appeal, it could take years to get a resolution, he said. But he said he has been buoyed by the thousands of phone calls, letters and e-mails he has received, including many from Kansans.
In Nebraska, Sarpy County Attorney Lee Polikov said that when the Westboro followers specifically target grieving families, “they don’t really deserve the protection of freedom of speech, freedom of religion.”
Phelps-Roper’s attorney, Bassel El-Kasaby, said he has asked that the Nebraska case be thrown out because the charges are unconstitutional. El-Kasaby was hired by the Nebraska ACLU to represent Phelps-Roper.
Nebraska’s flag law defines flag mutilation as when a “person intentionally casts contempt or ridicule upon a flag by mutilating, defacing, defiling, burning or trampling upon such flag.”
Phelps-Roper has noted that the U.S. Supreme Court has struck down laws forbidding flag desecration.