A new Orwellian act called
"The Respect For America's Fallen Heroes Act", H.R. 5037, has sailed through Congress, continuing America's bottomless quest for demogoguery & pandering & scapegoating & dismantling the U.S. Constitution.
"The Respect for America's Fallen Heroes Act," sponsored by Mike J. Rogers (R-MI, House), is directed primarily at one small group, the fringe far-right wacko cartoon Fred Phelps, the anti-gay activist most notorious for his protests at funerals including that of Matthew Shepard.
Recently, Phelps has gained new mojo by
attending funerals of U.S. troops, in protest. (Is he protesting U.S. occupation of Iraq? Geneva Conventions violations or Human Rights violations? Nope. It's still about the fags...)
This law is intended to ban demonstrations & protests within a zone near any military funerals at national cemeteries.
"No family burying a son or daughter, a husband or wife, a brother or sister, should be faced with the insults, verbal attacks, and intimidation that these protestors were screaming or displaying on signs," said Rogers, a former soldier and brother of an active duty soldier. "At first it made me very angry, but then I quickly realized that we must do something to stop it, and that is what this legislation will do, it will make it illegal to show disrespect, or harass the funeral of a soldier and his or her family and friends."
And while I sympathize with the families of fallen soldiers, I am highly skeptical of the motives of Rep. Rogers -- just look at that creepy moniker for H.R. 5037.
And despite the hate-spreading antics of Sideshow Fred, as a dyke, I find the dangerous nature of his "protests" somehow trumped by the dangerous demogoguery of Representative Mike Rogers -- and of Congress.
Ominously, one blognotes: "Sigh. I guess we have to start somewhere."
That's referring to a toehold on eliminating all protests.
The recent National Pentagon Radio story on H.R. 5037 described the act as unlikely to hold-up under adjudication.
Yet the entire debacle is truly Terri Schaivo Redux: the spectacle of Congress mobilizing to pass a law against one person or one small group.
Strangely, although I once felt threatened and revolted by Fred Phelps, I'm growing to view him as a bizarre, avant-garde "Billionaires for Bush"-type ally.
Okay, so I'm being hyperbolic, because Phelps & his ilk remain a truly barbaric and dangerous group, with a silent following as grotesque as a modern-day KKK splinter-group.
But I don't believe I'm being controversial by saying that I hope the ACLU picks up the case of Fred Phelps vs. H.R. 5037. Because as the saying goes, (to paraphrase), "First they came for the gay-bashers, and I didn't stand up, because I wasn't a gay basher..."
I can't believe, as a dyke, that I'm being expected to embrace someone like Fred Phelps for the sake of the U.S. Constitution.
If you're not gay, think ahead: What extreme dissonance will you be expected to embrace, in defense of the U.S. Constitution?
P.S. Incidentally, I've searched for the voting record on H.R. 5037 but I couldn't find it. The NPR story said that it passed Congress. I may have misheard this -- the more I think about it, it seems impossible even in this Dark Age. Yet I'd appreciate any link to a voting record... I want to see which Democrat Vichy Scumbags I'll be working against. (So help me God, Hillary Clinton, if you voted for this...)