free speech, constitutional experts said. The actions of the Westboro Baptist Church that pickets military funerals and tramples on the American flag have become important tests of the limits of U.S.

Fred Phelps of the Westboro Baptist Church in Topeka, Kansas takes part in an anti-gay protests behind a police officer at the courthouse site of the trial of one of the alleged attackers of gay student Matthew Shepard April 5, 1999.