After threatening multiple arrest warrants against the New York Satanic Temple that performed a “pink mass” ceremony at the gravesite of Fred Phelps’ mother, police in Lauderdale County, MS, have issued an arrest warrant for Temple spokesman Lucien Greaves, charging him with “desecration of a grave.” So much for the First Amendment.
The ceremony, which consisted of two gay couples kissing at the gravesite of Fred Phelps’ mother, has allegedly cast an irreversible spell that made the deceased “gay forever” and eternally pleasured by same-sex kisses. It also really, really pissed off Magnolia Cemetery owner Bill Arlinghaus.
In cahoots with the Meridian Police Department, Arlinghaus threatened “trespassing” charges against the group, even though the cemetery was open to the public when the Pink Mass took place. According to Meridian Police Captain Dean Harper, a judge refused to sign the suggested warrants, and instead issued a misdemeanor charge against Greaves exclusively.
“He broke the law,” Harper told HuffPo this week. Though the charge carries no jail time in lieu of a $500 fine, Harper says that Greaves will be arrested if he returns to Lauderdale County in order to “deter anyone else [from performing the ritual].”
Yesterday, Greaves emailed HuffPo again, accusing the Meridian PD of “[contorting the law in an effort to criminalize an act of expression that offends [them],” adding that the “law allows the same freedoms that are abused by the Westboro Baptists to be exercised by The Satanic Temple.”
There’s no telling whether Greaves will return to Lauderdale County in the near future, but he’s still pledging to continue pink mass ceremonies in response to future WBC pickets.
ZeeZee
Fine or no fine, jail or no jail… it doesn’t really matter, she is already “forever gay”!!! it’s a done deal.
hahaha
hyhybt
There is a potentially significant legal difference between the WBC’s graveyard protests and this one, which also illustrates the importance of homonym choice. The Phelps clan shows they’re dicks; they don’t show their dicks.
Scribe38
@hyhybt: The satanic priest kept it classy, he only tea-bagged the lady. At least he wasn’t spewing vomit during a private family service with the only goal being to spread hate.
2eo
There was literally no law broken, typical christofascism.
erasure25
And where are all these religious freedom advocates?? They should be advocating for Greaves. How many time can the Christian Taliban show their hypocrisy before the media calls them out on it?
ToxicLittleQueen
FUCK. THIS. This whole idea of America as the White Christian Kings of the World really took off during the Red Scare. Well-orchestrated fear of the dreaded Communism allowed McCarthy and his buddies to declare us ‘one nation under god’. And now we have some religious groups prosecuted for ‘trespassing’ on public property and some official government meetings opening with an anti-gay prayer to the Christian god. Boom. State, meet Church.
Derek Williams
I don’t approve of this kind of behaviour, but fair’s fair, after all the religious zealots think it’s their business to exorcise homosexuals, and shove their religion down our throats.
tardis
Fine, if they’re issued warrents it’s only fair that Westboror is issued thiers. They do the exact same thing.
hyhybt
@tardis: That’s just it: they DON’T do the exact same thing.
orjeffy
If they’ve broken the law, why hasn’t anything been done about the Mormons converting the dead (including Holocaust victims) into their religion?