crazy christian kansans
Some of you may remember a couple of years back, when Massachusettes was the first state to attempt to legalize gay marriage, there was a big rally in Cambridge where the first marriage licenses where being given out at midnight. There was also a bunch of insane protestors from Kansas. Well, I guess they're still at it, only this time they are protesting at the funerals of soldiers killed in Iraq. I guess they claim that god hates and is punishing the US (by killing soldiers, among others) because the US condones homosexuality. This time, however, politicians are getting outraged, saying it's disrespectful and trying to ban protests at funerals.
Granted these people are batshit insane, but it seems funny to me that it's not so disrespectful when they're just going around the country publicly preaching death to gays, but when it's at a funeral, of a soldier no less, then it's crossed a line. Maybe we should start by making it a priority to respect the living, then worry about respecting the dead.
strange bedfellows
Submitted by dkg on Mon, 2006-04-17 14:44.
ugh. the worst bit of this is that the various governments involved are using this madness as an excuse to limit public speech. Once they start saying "you can't do that in a funeral" about Fred Phelps, they can now say it about people with "bring the troops home now" signs. It's already hard enough to get images of the funerals distributed out there in the press. if you disallow dissenting voices at those funerals, you've got it even worse.
I hate to be on Fred Phelps side even a little bit, but i think i support his presence here. And i completely agree with what you say about respecting the living first.
I wish there were more christian protestors like these guys and fewer like Phelps.
oh the tidal forces are ripping me apart...
I couldn't agree with you more about having to agree with Fred Phelps, Daniel, but sometimes one is sucked unescapably towards an ironic black hole. Case in point: Ms. Roper-Phelps, the spokeswoman for the group and one of Mr. Phelps's daughters, as quoted in the last paragraph of the article:
"This hypocritical nation runs around the world touting our freedoms and is now prepared to dismantle the First Amendment. A piece of me wants to say that is exactly what you deserve."
I couldn't have said it better myself.