Press Release - Sunday, April 02, 2006
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Members of Illinois Senate must act on this vital legislation before this Friday's adjournment!! Quinn to call on Illinois citizens to help stop vile and hateful disruptions at military funerals
CHICAGO - Sunday, Lt. Governor Pat Quinn launched a statewide grassroots effort to limit vile and hateful protests within 200 feet of all Illinois funeral services. Quinn urged Illinois citizens to sign an online petition supporting the Let Them Rest in Peace Act - legislation allowing grieving families to pay their last respects to their loved ones with reverence and dignity.
Quinn was joined by Gold Star mother Linda Mae Morrison who recently experienced the pain of a funeral disruption in Virden, Illinois. Ms. Morrison lost her son, Army Staff Sgt. Gary R. Harper, 29, on Oct. 9, 2005 when his reconnaissance mission was attacked by enemy forces in Baghdad.
A hate group from Kansas picketed Sgt. Harper's memorial service in Virden and subjected mourners to a barrage of hateful epithets.
"No grieving military family should be subjected to vile epithets and signs at the funeral service of their loved one who has made the ultimate sacrifice for our country," Quinn said. "The Let Them Rest in Peace Act strikes an important balance between the First Amendment religious rights of families to bury their dead with reverence and the expression rights of those seeking to harass mourners at a funeral service."
Quinn launched an online petition drive (www.LetThemRestinPeace.org) that allows citizens to urge members of the Illinois Senate to take a roll call vote this week on the Let them Rest in Peace Act. The Illinois Senate must act on the legislation before this Friday's adjournment deadline.
The House of Representatives passed the Let them Rest in Peace Act on March 2 by a resounding vote of 114-2, following the lead of 10 other states that recently passed similar legislation. However, the Let Them Rest in Peace Act has been held for the past month in the Illinois Senate Rules Committee.
"The people of Illinois want their state senators to vote on the Let Them Rest in Peace Act," Quinn said. "Every state bordering Illinois - Indiana, Kentucky, Missouri, Iowa, and Wisconsin - has enacted a law to stop hateful disruptions of funeral services and so should the Land of Lincoln."
The Let Them Rest in Peace Act, sponsored by State Rep. Brandon Phelps (D-Harrisburg), is in response to a series of hate group disruptions at funeral services for Illinois military personnel in the past year, and applies to all funerals and memorial services in Illinois.
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