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Funeral protester charged as son steps on flag

OMAHA, Neb. — A Kansas woman whose church protests at military funerals across the nation was charged Thursday with four misdemeanors after her son stomped on a U.S. flag during a demonstration in Bellevue.

Shirley Phelps-Roper, 49, of Topeka, Kan., was charged with negligent child abuse, contributing to the delinquency of a minor, flag mutilation and disturbing the peace.

“I have not failed to do my duty to my children, to my God or to my fellow countrymen, and I take my job dead serious,” Phelps-Roper said Thursday, vowing to aggressively fight the charges.

The charges were filed Thursday in Sarpy County Court by County Attorney Lee Polikov. A message left Thursday afternoon for Polikov was not immediately returned.

Phelps-Roper said Polikov “has pointed the big guns of government at my liberty and at my children.”

The American Civil Liberties Union will likely represent Phelps-Roper, and was waiting for official approval from its board, said Laurel Marsh, executive director of ACLU Nebraska.

Phelps-Roper acknowledged that she allowed her 10-year-old son, Jonah, to stand on the flag. She said the act qualifies as freedom of expression, and she promises to challenge the constitutionality of the flag-mutilation charge. She noted that the U.S. Supreme Court has struck down laws forbidding flag desecration.

According to Nebraska’s flag law, “a person commits the offense of mutilating a flag if such person intentionally casts contempt or ridicule upon a flag by mutilating, defacing, defiling, burning, or trampling upon such flag.”

Phelps-Roper is a member of the Westboro Baptist Church in Topeka and the daughter of the church’s founder, the Rev. Fred Phelps.

Phelps-Roper said church members have protested at hundreds of military funerals across the country for 17 years. Westboro’s message during funeral protests is that the soldier deaths are God’s punishment for the nation accepting homosexuals.

The Bellevue funeral was for Nebraska Army National Guard Spc. William “Bill” Bailey, who was killed May 25 when an explosive device struck his vehicle in Iraq.