Funeral-picketing law overturned

The state Supreme Court effectively ended a law banning picketing at funerals, ruling in Topeka that it was unconstitutional for legislators to require a court to uphold the law before it could be enforced.

That “judicial trigger” was intended to prevent the Westboro Baptist Church from collecting damages from the state should it successfully appeal the law. The measure was passed in response to the sect’s picketing of military funerals. The Rev. Fred Phelps and his followers claim U.S. combat deaths are God’s punishment for the nation’s tolerance of homosexuality.

Ruling on a law before it can be enforced usurps power from the Legislature, Justice Marla J. Luckert wrote in the unanimous ruling. “Courts do not have jurisdiction over purely hypothetical questions associated with nonexistent issues,” she wrote.