Westboro pickets met by counterprotest

DES MOINES - It wasn't the largest Statehouse protest inspired by proposed legislation, but it may have been the loudest.

As six members of the Westboro Baptist Church sang their opposition to abortion, homosexuality, divorce and remarriage, and the American flag as an idol Monday forenoon outside the Capitol they were drowned out by motorcyclists revving the engines of their bikes.

'We're going to block 'em out with our pipes,” Clem Vestal of Des Moines explained. 'We'll drown them out.”

Not part of any organized group, Vestal said he and his friends show up 'for any good cause.”

For Shirley Phelps-Roper and her troupe of protesters the noise was an affirmation their message was being heard.

'We're making our point. That's why this mob is here,” Phelps-Roper said about the bikers and about 75 others who chanted, sang and heckled the Westboro pickets.

'They can't drown out words on our signs,” she said after the bikers left. 'They have to make a lot of noise. That's what it's going to sound like in hell.”

The demonstration was prompted by proposed legislation that would keep Westboro or other demonstrators at least 1,000 feet from funerals, such as the services for soldiers killed in combat. Westboro has shown up at several funerals to deliver its message that God will turn his back on a nation that sanctions abortion, same-sex marriage and other abominations. The death of soldiers, according to Westboro, is God's punishment for America abandoning him.

'The USA is a murderous, baby-killing ... land, hated worldwide for its hypocrisy,” according to a flyer advertising the Capitol event.

Rep. Bobby Kaufmann, R-Wilton, who called Westboro funeral pickets 'verbal domestic terrorists,” is crafting a bill to establish a buffer zone between protesters and those services. It's in response to a federal court ruling that members of the Topeka, Kansas, based church were within their rights when they demonstrated at soldiers' funerals in Council Bluffs and Red Oak. In those cases, the church members wore, trampled and spit on flags as part of their demonstrations.

His bill will be based on a Missouri law already upheld by a federal court.

'I feel family members have a First Amendment right to a peaceful goodbye,” Kaufmann said. 'Outside the buffer, unfortunately, they can do whatever they want.”

He expects 'widespread, bipartisan” support for his bill.

House Judiciary Committee Chairman Chip Baltimore, R-Boone, was one of a few legislators seen at the rally. He thanked the bikers for their noise.

'It's the First Amendment,” he said about Westboro's protest. 'We don't have to like it, but we don't have to stand by and bow to their tactics.”

Kaufmann's bill likely will come to his committee and while he only would say that he'll 'take a look” at it, Baltimore said the law should protect grieving people from physical and emotional assault.