Westboro Baptist Church protested at Beau Biden's funeral, says the news

[dixiegrrrrl]

and a guy threw a cup of coffee at them and was arrested.

Strange priorities we got in this country.

I am all for live and let live, but those media whores are in a whole different category and how the hell did they get a permit to protest at the funeral?????
Or did they NOT get a permit and were not arrested anyhow?

[elleng]

1. Glad I didn't see them.

They were not apparent, not on MSNBC anyway. And not disrupting the service.

[Zamen]

2. The Phelps family are all lawyers

They know what they're doing, and they always make sure they stay just an inch within the law to avoid getting arrested during their IRL trolling. I think they actually like it when people throw coffee at them because it gives them a chance to sue or file charges. They provoke people deliberately.

[tymorial]

4. Not just that... how about this for a mindf*

Fred Phelps was a civil rights lawyer in the 60s. He routinely worked on behalf of African Americans who were experiencing racial discrimination. He claimed to have taken down Jim Crowe in this town and the state of Kansas retaliated. He was given an award sometime in the 80s by the local NAACP chapter for his work.

[Zamen]

6. Yeah he was a pretty good civil rights lawyer by all accounts

I know he was supposed to have experienced a lot of harassment from the local community because of it, and his children were bullied at school.

[tymorial]

3. They obtained a permit

It was in the news a few days ago. They obtained the permit and made a public announcement.

[Tommy_Carcetti]

5. The news ought to stop saying anything about WBC.

Them and Pam Geller and Sarah Palin and Ann Coulter and Donald Trump and anyone else who says stupid shit just to get attention from the media.

Don't feed the trolls.

[pinboy3niner]

7. They were allowed to protest 4 blocks away from the church

See LynneSin's report:

About 3 WBC showed up for the Biden funeral
http://www.democraticunderground.com/10026789194

[dixiegrrrrl]

8. Taht explains the absence of people in this pic of the dude who was arrested

[LynneSin]

9. Reporting in from the protest - they were nowhere NEAR the funeral. What they did was a joke

They got about 4 blocks north of the funeral which was nowhere on the route of the funeral procession nor how the Obamas were arriving (they came in from the south probably from New Castle Airport). The Police gave Westboro Baptist, all 3 of them, about an hour to stand on the corner of DuPont and Pennsylvania Avenue to hold their signs. That was around 9:30bam in the morning. I kinda felt bad for the Cadillac Dealership who got stuck with them on their corner.

I was at 9th and DuPont right outside the church. I had considered getting up early waiting in the line to attend the funeral but I'm not much for line-waiting. I ran into some people I knew who said WBC had indeed arrived so we headed up to PA Avenue. The police kept them on their corner while on the other 3 corner were the counter protesters including the motorcycle group, the group that sang Amazing Grace for the entire time and other random folks that showed up. About every 10 minutes a few people would walk in front of the WBC group with the American Flag and the police would chase them away.

By that time I had crossed the street to get some water. In came the folks with the Pink signs and stood in front of the WBC and I think the police just let those protesters stay there along with another group with the rainbow flag. The police love the Bidens so as long as no one go violent they aren't going to move the blockers away from the WBC folks.

I was annoyed that someone interviewed the one woman, not sure who that was. And as for the coffee guy - that was stupid. We were to not engage with the WBC folks, just block them.

They left at 10:30 which was right before the Bidens were to arrive. I was able to get back down to the church to see the family arrive but no one saw the Obamas enter.

I would say about 150 people showed up to counter the WBC idiots.

[MH1]

10. I despise WBC, but throwing coffee on someone is still assault.

At other funerals the "Patriot Guard" has formed a non-violent cordon to shield mourners from the asswipes of WBC. That is the correct type of response, not assault.

That said, I think mitigating circumstances should be taken into account here and the guy who threw the coffee should get off very lightly.

[LynneSin]

11. Coffee Guy was arrested and there was some motorcycle people there at the protest

and as I was telling someone on facebook in the end WBC wasn't really protesting the funeral but just random people driving by on Pennsylvania Avenue. It is very unlikely that any of the key people who attended the funeral actually saw WBC since most of them came up from the south and the protest was setup north of the Church.

It really looked like they were protesting the Cadillac dealership and those people are pretty nice. I bought my car from the Subaru dealership which is owned by the same group.