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If you have visited Brody's website today you will see this is the top story. It is all over the various news sites:
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20110302/ap_on_re_us/us_supreme_court_funeral_protests
The U.S. Supreme Court has ruled 8-1 that the Westboro Baptist Church hate-mongers have the right to say what they will. Their speech is protected by Constitutional rights.
I'm sure most of us have seen the images of Freddy Phelps and his followers picketing with those "God Hates Fags" signs, it turns my stomach. But the law will allow such hatred to exist in our society and I am not opposed to that.
The same law allows gay protestors to hold up signs that say "Christofacists ought to burn in Hell." Perhaps we will see more of that now...I hope so.
But now the First Ammendment on free speech is something Freddy can use to defend himself, but there are going to be consequences, I can see it coming.
It is one thing to denegrate gay people, quite another to picket funerals of soldiers who have died in battle. I oppose the wars in which they have died, but then they were free to join the military and face the consequences. But Freddy is playing with fire.
Like many nations, the U.S. has a tradition of military families and the service organizations are very fraternal societies. So standing up like Freddy and saying "Let's have more dead soldiers" at a family funeral is not going go unnoticed. No matter what the Supreme Court says, there are some very angry families out there, and they know how to use guns.
Words of hate have followed the gay community around for years, we are used to it, although we abhor those who speak to us in that fashion. Freddy and his family are standing out in the open, the perfect place for retaliation by someone driven over the edge by their hateful acts and words. It would be easy here in the U.S., guns are protected as well as speech.
I don't want to see the violence and I don't think it will ever come from the gay community. What the Westboro Church folks are doing is absurd, and although it inspires derision I think they are laughable, at least to me.
I am concerned about the young children Freddy puts on the front lines of his picketing. Let's hope the backlash of his actions don't endanger any lives but his own. I would be glad to build Freddy a cross on which he could be nailed, perhaps that is what he seeks, and that speaks to his lunacy. Does anyone doubt the man is crazy?
Age appears to be best in four things; old wood best to burn, old wine to drink, old friends to trust, and old authors to read. (Sir Francis Bacon 1561-1626)
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Hate speech gets a reprieve in court... 
