UPDATED: Supporters come out for soldier's funeral (Westboro Baptist Church)

[Bozita]

Source: Port Huron Times Herald

UPDATED: Supporters come out for soldier's funeral
TIMES HERALD • NOVEMBER 17, 2010


Streets have been blocked around Holy Cross Catholic Church in Marine City as mourners prepare for Army Pfc. Shane Reifert’s funeral today.

Cars have lined the roads and people are carrying American flags throughout the city. At least one business owner is handing out small flags to those passing by.

Reifert, 23, of Cottrellville Township died Nov. 6 after his unit was attacked by insurgents in Afghanistan. He was assigned to the 1st Battalion, 327th Infantry Regiment, 1st Brigade Combat Team, 101st Airborne Division, based in Fort Campbell, Ky.

Barbara Shonk, of East China Township, works in the city and said the community won’t tolerate pickets at the funeral.

Read more: http://www.thetimesherald.com/article/20101117/NEWS05/101117005/1075/NEWS06/UPDATED--Supporters-come-out-for-soldier-s-funeral-

[Roma]

1. No pickets had arrived as of 10 a.m.

So now they don't even need to show up to get the publicity they crave.

*SMH*

[Demoiselle]

2. But for me the most important publicity is the news that

the whole town is registering its disgust at Westboro and working together to stop them.

[Bozita]

7. Detroit local teevee news at noon: Westboro is a no-show

Just reported at both:
www.wdiv.com
www.wxyz.com

[pattmarty]

3. While I am opposed to violence, these "people" should have their.......

........(the Westboro "people") bloody asses handed to them while they are being thrown into their heavily damaged vehicles and shown the way "outa town". There is absolutely NO reason at all for these "people" to continue to inhabit the same spaces decent people live.

[littlewolf]

4. no no no

no damage to property ... tar, feathers, rail .... then shown the way out of town
:D

[Vidar]

24. I like the way you think, but would slightly prefer a barrel of napalm myself.

[happygoluckytoyou]

5. "deaths are God's punishment for the nation's tolerance of homosexuality"

GEORGE W BUSH
SARAH PALIN
DICK CHAIN-ME

whatever the reason-----> these THREE are punishment enough...

dear god,
please accept our apology for whatever is bothering you. stop sending these punishments and we promise to be good. we really don't want to burn in hell--- just a nice warm day in arizona without getting sent back to mexico would be fine.
thank you
a fan

[BrklynLiberal]

6. Westboro is a group of sick, ignorant people who are led by hate and fear.

The leader, Phelps, always reminds me of the scary preacher guy from "Poltergeist".

[LongTomH]

17. Now, THAT'S Scary!!!!!!!!

But, Fred Phelps is scarier!!!!!!:scared: :scared: :scared: :scared: :scared: :scared: :scared: :scared: :scared: :scared: :scared: :scared: :scared: :scared: :scared:

[scribble]

8. Good God, people ...

To be better than these idiots, we have to be, well, *better* than these idiots.

Covering them with tar and feathers, beating them to a pulp, wrecking their cars, and then "helping" them to leave town is not only being as bad as they are, it is also what they want.

If they have the right to be in a public place, so do you. Practice some nonviolent resistance. Isolate each person in their party; surround them; don't let them pass except to leave. Force them to start any physical struggle that follows, and then arrest them. I've even seen the Hells Angels do this, in Los Angeles.

I am sure there are other strategies as well.

Grow up, folks.

Violence is stupid.


sc

[rfranklin]

9. You haven't been around here very long...

or you would know that most of us are just blowing off steam. Unlike the "conservatives," most of us don't really believe in stomping on people's heads.

[scribble]

23. ... Actually, I HAVE been around ...

... since the late 90s or early 2000s, later renewed. I just don't post very much.

I don't mind a little ignorance. It's arrogance that bothers me. I find that if I try to do what's right; my personal sense for the first tends to take care of the second.

I never said we shouldn't resist these idiots. I said we should not return violence with something just as irrelevant and pointless. We need to outmaneuver and outsmart those people, and beating them up is not the same thing as shutting them up.

How about simply charging them with disturbing the peace?

How about suing them in court for willful infliction of distress -- $100 to file the suit; I'd say it would be $100 well spent. A dozen small claims court lawsuits like that and they'd be bankrupt.

How about picketing THEM at their church and at their individual residences, and see how THEY like it?

Look; I'm not going to flame you, but it looks to me like you need to get your act together a little before you start posting patronizing replies to people you don't know.

sc

[pattmarty]

10. And, I suppose you would feel exactly the same if it were your..........

...........brother, son, or daughter, right? These ass holes do not deserve the same standards any "normal" person should have, fucking period. I am a "fight back liberal", I don't turn the other fucking cheek.

[herbm]

16. Situational ethics is how one ends up in a militia or teabagging. Its not your relative. Its importa

nt to stand up to these yahoos, but not to act like them.

[pattmarty]

19. I don't have "situational ethics". These people are fucking vermin......

.........like the Nazi's or psychopathic criminals, THAT'S the difference.

[herbm]

20. They aren't vermin. They are people. Thats how facists dehumanize segments of other human groups.

They call them dogs or animals or sub-humans. What they (Hillboro) do is despicable. Violence on them is escalation. What we need to do is be there to counterbalance them, to show how marginalized they are. To make them know how out of it they are. So far they have used no physical violence. If they do, there is law and order to bring them to justice. If we do otherwise we are them and worse. To think that in this case violence is a rational response IS situational ethics. And it can make good people act irrationaly and violently and criminaly.

As a veteran who has lost brothers, who's been to services for brothers who were killed there but died here forgotten in the streets unable to be helped or found until too late, I don't want these people to get the violence we risked honorably. I do want them to see that they are in a slight margin and that we 'band of brothers (and now sisters)' can honor our own in numbers bigger than the 100 or so those goofballs could ever raise and we don't need to blood thier stand and give it some sort of legitimacy of sacrifice.

I know how you feel, it makes me grind my teeth, too. But in the scheme of things, compared to the sacrifice and honor of our dead, anything these goofs do, well, "it don't mean a thing".

[herbm]

22. Relatives of victims don't get to sit on the jury, prosecute the crime or judge the guilty.

For good reason. We are a society and prosecute the evil for society, not to get vengeance for the victims.

[Bragi]

13. Well said

I find the ability of so many people on DU to consistently attack legal free speech with which they disagree to be quite alarming.

It's as though they don't understand the First Amendment, or if they do, want it repealed.

Some people need to think more and emote less.

[herbm]

14. The first time I saw Westboro Baptist Church videos, I thought it was an Onion bit.

[herbm]

15. Now that was well said. They want some sort of cheap martyr's end.

Not dead, but bruised a bit. Then they can make fertilizer bombs for self protection.

[kestrel91316]

25. Ok, so we note with interest that you've got WBC's back.

[herbm]

21. You may not have been around much, you are right. Good thoughts well said.

[Bozita]

11. How often does this Westboro "no-show" thing happen?

[herbm]

18. not often enough.

[bluestateguy]

12. I think it is great to see all of this public outrage

Although it is such a shame that similar outrage from Middle America was not forthcoming back in the 90's when Westboro confined their activities to picketing gay persons' funerals.