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As many of you know, several states have been trying to enact versions of a "Rest in Peace" Act - designed to protect grieving families at funerals from being subjected to demonstrations outside the venue and the cemetary. This legislation has been created to target Rev. Fred Phelps and his band of "religious" lunatics who have been criss-crossing the nation picketing soldier's funerals, claiming that this is God's punishment for the nation harboring "homosexuals." While these demonstrations are disgraceful, legislation cannot specifically target this group alone for their protests, which means that enacting such legislation must prohibit any kind of demonstration.
My home state, Illinois, is one of the locations where this law has been introduced in the legislature. The sponsors claim that they were shocked at the presence of Phelps and his band at the funerals of soldiers and that our heroes and their grieving families are being disrespected. I happen to agree with that notion. However, I strongly disagree with this knee-jerk legislation.
For one thing, Westboro Baptist Church has been picketing funerals of members of the gay community for at least a dozen years, screaming condemnation at grieving family members that their deceased gay relative is "entering hell" even while the service is going on and the burial ceremonies are taking place. Their behavior during the funeral of Matthew Shepard, the gay man who was beaten and tied to a fence post in Wyoming back in 1997, made national headlines and news. State legislatures didn't do anything to address their activity.
It infuriates me that these legislatures would suddenly determine that the grieving families of soldiers are suddenly more important than the families of other gay citizens whose grief these same legislatures ignored for years. To me, it is even more of a slap in the face that the motivation for this legislation now is the picketing of military funerals, the very same branch of our federal government which continues to promote a disgusting policy of discrimination against gay Americans.
According to the St. Petersburg Times and the Washington Blade, this discriminatory policy is even more insulting since, if a soldier says he/she is gay and they are slated for service in Iraq or Afghanistan, the military is shipping them overseas to do their tour of duty and delaying discharge until they return home.
But there are other issues here which lead me to believe that Democrats, especially, should rally against this kind of restrictive legislation. In most states, statutes involving the arrangement of funerals is still constructed to recognize only legally designated "family" members. And naturally, since part of the wingnut agenda is that gay citizens are "threats" to the "family," these laws continue to codify outrageous discrimination against the partners of gay citizens. Even though the purpose of these laws was not to create perks for marriage but rather to meet the state's interest in ensuring a smooth transition in settling major life events, the religious right maintains that changing these laws is an assault on "traditional" marriage. This is, of course, nonsense.
Death is not a marraige experience - it is an individual experience. And the way these laws were constructed (most were written back when most family members spent most of their lives on the family homestead, they are enforced in such a way that they deny gay partners access to both funeral arrangements and the funeral itself. This means that, no matter what the wishes of the deceased may have been, a partner can be denied access to both the funeral arrangements and the funeral services by any legally recognized "family" member. And the "Rest in Peace" acts, if enacted by states, would mean that a gay partner who is treated this way by a family could be arrested for holding a picket sign outside the funeral he/she has been barred from attending. In many cases, it could also allow "family" members the right to have the partner arrested for even attempting to attend the funeral of their life partner. In my mind, this is unconscionable.
For decades, legislatures have ignored the discrepancies in statutes, particularly since society and families have changed over the years. There have been numerous stories where longtime gay partners have been denied the right to claim a partner's body, have been barred from funeral arrangements and the funeral itself (even in cases where the deceased has pre-arranged and PAID for the funeral) and have gotten court orders to exhume bodies from designated graves and move them to places where the "family" has decided the gay deceased should be buried. This law would only underscore the policy of the state that gay relationships not only do not exist, but would claim that only legally recognized "family" members are recognized as having the right to grieve. To me, this is nothing more than another attempt by the Right to regulate the nature of our most intimate relationship choices and it must be stopped.
There is no reason why state legislatures cannot approach these old statutes and make changes to accommodate all citizens - especially since at least half the population is not married at the time of death. And since death is an individual experience, individuals should have the right to honor those who are most important in their lives, whether legally recognized "family" members selfishly want that or not. In my opinion, I think we should oppose these restrictive speech laws until the legislatures address the issues that are most important to each person's life.
I'd be interested in what some of you think about this situation.
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