Kentucky Prohibition On Funeral Protests Struck Down

The Associated Press last week reported that a Kentucky federal district court has temporarily enjoined the enforcement of Kentucky's law barring protests within 300 feet of military funerals and memorial services. The law was aimed at members of the Westboro Baptist Church in Topeka, Kansas who go around the country carrying signs at military funerals claiming that soldiers' deaths are punishment from God for the U.S. tolerating homosexuality. The court in McQueary v. Stumbo (ED KY, Sept. 26, 2006) found Kentucky's law too broad, saying:

The provisions at issue in this case burden substantially more speech than is necessary to prevent interferences with a funeral or to protect funeral attendees from unwanted, obtrusive communications that are otherwise impractical to avoid. Section 5(1)(b) prohibits all congregating, picketing, patrolling, demonstrating or entering on property within 300 feet of a funeral whether such activities interfere with the funeral or not and whether such activities are authorized by funeral attendees or not. It prohibits such activity whether the persons involved in the activities are visible to funeral participants or not and whether they are making any sound that funeral participants can hear or not. Thus, in addition to prohibiting intrusive activities, Section 5(1)(b), prohibits activity that would not interfere with a funeral and prohibits communications that are neither necessarily unwanted nor so obtrusive that they cannot be avoided by the funeral attendees....

The 300-foot zone would encompass public sidewalks and streets and would restrict private property owners' speech on their own property. The zone is large enough that it would restrict communications intended for the general public on a matter completely unrelated to the funeral as well as messages targeted at funeral participants.