In the wake of the US Supreme Court decision affirming Westboro Baptist ‘Church” members’ right under the First Amendment’s provision for freedom of speech to demonstrate against homosexuality at funerals of fallen soldiers, it occurs to me to speculate about a couple things. The congregation of this church, incidentally, consists primarily of a grandfather, his children, and his grandchildren. It is an independent church rather than part of the mainstream Baptist conventions.
1. Has it ever occurred to those “church” members that the same Constitutional rights that allow them to carry on their onerous, hate-filled campaign also guarantees the rights of those they vilify to pursue life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, or, that those very soldiers whose funerals they disrupt, lost their lives, after swearing allegiance to and vowing to protect this country and its Constitution, in an attempt to provide others with those same human rights?
2. Considering that most extreme hatreds arise from personal issues that foment such beliefs, what is the basis of hatreds so deep that those so-called church members would show a total lack of compassion for a fallen soldier and would disregard the emotional distress of grieving parents, relatives, and friends who were paying their final farewells?
Sometimes it goes against the sensibilities of a people to concede the Westboro Baptist Church congregation’s freedom of speech when used in such a hurtful way, but that same amendment guarantees me the right to speak out against them.