You know it’s going to be one of “those days” when you wake up to find the dishwasher stuck and the Phelp’s family gloating on TV (hold your nose, my friends, this, sadly, isn’t a parody). The Supreme Court just held in an 8 – 1 ruling (Justice Alito was the lone dissenter) that the Westboro Baptist Church is free to continue protesting military funerals.
For those of you lucky enough not to be acquainted with the Phelp’s family or their so called “church” of crazy, they’re the whack jobs who have been protesting military funerals (and just about everything else you can think of) with the big “God Hates Fags” signs. In the 90’s they protested at funerals of AIDS victims claiming the deaths was God’s judgment against sin (i.e. homosexuality, promiscuity, having sex in positions other than the missionary take your pick) For the past few years they’ve been protesting military funerals under the guise that the death of our soldiers is some form of divine retribution against American hairdressers. Seriously.
I must admit that I’m torn on this one. I agree with Chief Justice Roberts intellectually. I’d be the world’s biggest hypocrite if I were to say otherwise. But…*ugh* I wish I could.
There is no other way to say it: the Westboro “Baptist Church” is vile. I feel physically ill at the notion that the constitution, created by men of reason in the age of enlightenment, a document crafted to stand sentinel over a free people safeguarding their right to lead orderly productive lives free from interference of king or state, should be used to prop up the Phep’s brand of spited bigotry. However, we don’t get to cherry pick. Just like the Klan, the NAZI’s or Code Pink, the right of free speech is extended to all. To restrict it would do far greater harm than the Pheps’ of the world could ever dream of doing. For now, we’re going to be stuck listening to a lot of gloating. In the meantime NOTE TO EVERYONE: Ignore these losers! It’s the only way they’re ever going to go away.
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