Hate is Hate
Yesterday, both houses of the legislature passed Senate Bill 525, a bill to put reasonable limits on protests outside of funerals. As you may remember, the “Rev.” Fred Phelps and his “church”, the Westboro Baptist Church of Kansas, have been going to the funerals of soldiers from Wisconsin who’ve died in Iraq and protesting, due to “America’s support of gays and lesbians”. Uh huh. Phelps is fanatically anti-gay (kinda like some of the legislators we know) and he also runs a website, www.godhatesfags.com.
The legislature passed a bill to put some limitations on the geographic access where the protesters can voice their First Amendment right to free speech at funerals. During the debate, the legislature railed against the hate speech of Phelps & Co.
I find our action yesterday incredibly ironic. On one hand, the legislature deplores Fred Phelps' message of hate. On the other hand, the legislature delivers a similar message by introducing bills like the constitutional amendment to ban civil unions and same sex marriage.
What I find most interesting, however, is that Phelps and his ilk are the same people who so aggressively want to place a discriminatory amendment to our state constitution making civil unions and marriage illegal in Wisconsin, which are already not legal in our state.
There’s no way to sugar coat this for my vociferously anti-gay colleagues, so here it is; hate is hate. The hate Fred Phelps represents when he protests military funerals is just as inappropriate as the introduction of hateful legislation like the constitutional amendment banning civil unions and gay marriage. This hate doesn't become any less tolerable just because it's preached by the legislature while wearing suits and ties instead of carrying signs and using a bullhorn.
I hope the people of Wisconsin remember that the Fred Phelps & Co. that the legislature railed on today for their bigoted hate speech preached at funerals of fallen soldiers is the same Fred Phelps & Co. that legislators will be walking hand in hand with next November when they support the discriminatory amendment to our constitution.
4 Comments:
You are correct, sir.
Thank you very much for putting this in such concise terms.
Some restriction might pass constitutional muster, ut this bill goes "too far." there's a legitimate Governmental interest in preventing physical confrontation, but this does not justify the 1,000 feet limit.
When I sued the City of Dallas over their 1 mile exclusuion zone around the 1984 Republican national Convention, US District Court Judge Barefoot Sanders came up with an appropriate balance between free speech and legitimate security concerns, ordering them to move their security fence to "a stones throw, plus 10 feet."
I disagree with you, Ben, I support free speech, but keep it away from someone's funeral. You shouldn't have grieving people having to walk through protestors. This same group protested at Coretta Scott King's funeral.
I'll just say it now, if I ever catch Mr. Phelps and his hatefilled crew outside a funeral of a friend or family member, I'll forget that I'm a Christian and eliminate a few of them with my car.
That, by the way, is not a threat, it's a promise. And, it's probably the meanest thought I've had in a very long time.
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