An Ohio Congressmen who successfully passed legislation in his home state protecting military families from hate protesters at the funerals of U.S. soldiers is pushing to make his law a national precedent. Representative John Boccieri (D-OH) and fellow military veteran Duncan Hunter (R-CA) have introduced a House resolution that urges the Supreme Court to rule in favor of military families seeking to restrict the First Amendment rights of protestors at military funerals.
Boccieri told Fox News on Saturday “As a military veteran and current reservist, we would fight over and over again for their right to spew their venom and their hate. But they have to do it at a respectful distance. The right to free speech ends where the privacy of a family mourning the loss of a service member begins.”
While in the Ohio Legislature, Boccieri introduced and successfully passed House Bill 484, the Let Them Rest in Peace Act. It creates a 300 foot buffer between protestors and grieving families at funerals. The bill was signed into Ohio law May 2006.
Boccieri, a former C-130 pilot who flew missions during Operation Iraqi Freedom and Operation Enduring Freedom, says his law doesn’t prevent what he calls “hate groups” from “spewing their venom.” But he told Fox News the law keeps them at a respectful distance. “This is personal for me. I have flown wounded and fallen soldiers in and out of Baghdad.”
Boccieri said he wants the same protections guaranteed to other groups “Over and over again, and just as recently as 2000 in Colorado versus Hill Supreme Court case, they said whether it’s abortion clinic or whether it’s at a protest for political rally, they have to be at least 300 feet away. We are suggesting that the states that enacted these provisions, where they have said that the grieving family has a right to privacy, make the minimum distance 300 feet.”
The resolution was introduced Friday — just a few weeks after the Supreme Court announced it would hear the case of Snyder v. Phelps during its next term. The case focuses on a military father, who told a Baltimore jury how picketing by members of the Westboro Baptist Church at his son’s funeral in 2006, with signs like “Semper Fi Fags” and “Thank God for Dead Soldiers” stripped the dignity from the proceeding. Snyder was awarded $10 million, which was then cut in half on appeal. The judgment was ultimately reversed by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit, which ruled the group’s speech, offensive as it was, was constitutionally protected. The case was one of three the court announced it will consider in its new term that begins in October.