SMITE THEM GOD, SMITE THEM - Westboro's God Hates Fags campaign is an embarrassment to humanity. Yet they have the right to make idiots of themselves...even if we do want to smack them down.
There are few things as repugnant as Westboro Baptist’s “God Hates Fags” screeds at military funerals. It’s an understandable impulse to want to thump these yahoos to within an inch of their putrid lives, but if you do, expect to do some time in the pokey. Free speech is allowed, violence isn’t.
The Supreme Court will soon hear the question of whether free speech protections cover Westboro’s lunatic fringing. It’ll be interesting to see how it goes.
Cases like this pose a constitutional dilemma. For the most part – save the whole “shouting fire in a crowded theatre” question – I favor letting people say what they want. Free speech doesn’t mean free to anyone I don’t think is stupid, rude, or just plain wrong. It means free…for everyone…even if they are ignorant pootieheads.
Defending the Rights of the Asshatted
I recently defended the right of gay rights opponents to say what they want and received some not unexpected fallout for my trouble. Several commenters took a zero-tolerance line – they said it’s never OK to oppose anything as important as gay rights…period. However, you could just as easily turn that around to say it’s never OK for Republicans to speak either. No matter how much I fantasize about stopping their unending, infernal chants of NO it would be clearly unconstitutional and just plain wrong. The offense in Westboro’s case owes a lot to where you and your opponents stand.
The Constitution presupposes there is someone on either side who is rational and feels as strongly about others’ rights as they do their own. It assumes these people will speak and not poke each other in the nose. It assumes that words don’t cause permanent damage regardless of how insulting and wrong you may feel they are.
But cases like the Westboro Association of Pinheads’ picketing the funerals of innocent, grieving bystanders who have nothing to do with their “issue” seems to go a step farther. Is this the point where the right of grieving families and friends should be protected from a group if nimrods who have no respect for others? After all, my general rule is that exercising your right is OK as long as you don’t impinge on someone else’s right to exercise theirs. Not respecting their rights takes you one step closer to their values, not farther away.
GOD, ARE YOU LISTENING? - God needs a better PR person on Earth. Fred Phelps and his ilk are damaging God's brand.
The Slippery Slope
My first impulse is to squash them like the vermin they are. However, in the back of my mind I keep hearing a constitutional voice whispering that depriving Westboro of their idiotic fun may be the first in a series of slip slides down a mucky slope.
Who gets to make these decisions? What are the criteria? How much does asshatery cost per pound when compared with the cost of individual freedom? It’s too simple to just say STFU and be done with it. As clear-cut as it may appear, it’s anything but.
As with many issues, there isn’t a good black and white answer and I don’t profess to have one. At the end of the day, the Supremes will make a decision. In all likelihood, Congress will pass more legislation and the Supremes will have to retest the new version of Constitutional right and wrong. No doubt, this question will come back up repeatedly, if for no other reason than the Westboro loons are unlikely to stop until their God snatches up the last of them and casts them into a lake of fire. This is the juncture between the letter of the law and its common sense application.
The whole sordid affair makes me long to go back to my original thought and thump the stupid bastards to within an inch of their crapulent lives.
But that’s not Constitutional either.
- God Hates Shrimp (godhatesshrimp.com)
- God Hates Fags (godhatesfags.org.uk)
- God Hates Signs Generator (godhatessigns.com)
- Supreme Court to hear Westboro appeal (hotair.com)
- Supreme Court Will Decide Westboro Baptist’s Right to Protest Military Funerals And Say Terrible Things (queerty.com)
- To What Degree Does the 1st Amendment Protect Hurtful Speech? (blogs.wsj.com)
- Bad facts make bad law (scienceblogs.com)
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They weren’t harassing anyone. They were the obligatory 1000 feet away from the Church. Indeed, the father did not even know they had been there until long after the funeral was over and he saw them on the television. So much for harassment. Even if the father had seen them at the time, and he didn’t, they were protesting peacefully. They were not shoving signs in people’s faces or shouting into bullhorns. They were peacefully assembled to petition their government for redress of their grievances. So far as I know, that’s still allowed.
In lieu of that, you apparently wish to fall back to the ‘fighting words’ exception to the first amendment. The Westboro crew said nothing at all about the particular soldier being buried. They weren’t protesting the funeral, the family, or the deceased but the nation’s acceptance of gays in society and in the military.
Again, in lieu of fire ants, you are free to throw punches but, again, expect criminal charges and lawsuits. You can still expect to lose.
Dumping fire ants on someone may be assault, but I’d say that showing up at someone’s funeral and harassing a grieving family is, too. Besides, why fire ants? Whatever happened to a good, old-fashioned punch in the mouth?
Randal and Craig,
I vote for dumping fire ants on these guys to become a Constitutional right!
Randal Graves,
One could, but that would be assault. Expect criminal charges and lawsuits. Expect to lose in both cases.
The price paid for free speech is having to listen to polar opposites have their say but listening to certain media, some of them actually have degrees in journalism, spouting along with the mob is getting hard to take.
Could always douse them with a bucket of fire ants.
I, too, am a big fan of extending free speech as far and as broad as can be done without leading to immediate and unlawful conduct and without perpetrating a fraud, breaking a contract or exposing state secrets that endanger lives. It’s even okay to shout “Fire!” in a packed theater, providing there is, in fact, a fire. As for the Westboro gang, all the more power to them. I believe the civil suit decision against them was way, way wrong and should be overturned.
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