Iowa Senator Chuck Grassley says it may be time for a federal law banning protests at funerals. Iowa became the latest of some 25 states on Monday to pass such legislation into law, in light of a planned protest this (Tuesday) morning at a military funeral in Ogden.
Grassley applauds Iowa legislators for enacting the measure, but says it may need more teeth with a nationwide law to halt “hate” groups. Grassley says “If I had a chance to vote for such legislation at the federal level, I would vote for it. I would hope that it’d be one of those things that the Supreme Court would not say right is a violation of First Amendment, the right to assemble.”
Grassley says he’s seen the “lack of respect for family and death” that’s been happening lately with funeral protests. He says if Congress takes up such a measure, it would likely pass legal muster.
Grassley says “I would think that the Ninth Amendment, which now has been expanded by the Supreme Court to include the right of privacy, that if there’s any right to privacy there ought to be a right to privacy at the burial of a family member. So consequently, I believe it would be constitutional if we were to do it at the federal level.”
A Kansas-based church group plans to protest at today’s funeral of 22-year-old Daniel Sesker of Ogden, an Iowa National Guard Sergeant who was killed earlier this month in a roadside bombing in Iraq. The group claims God is killing U.S. soldiers because America tolerates homosexuality.