Throughout the history of religious bigots, God-fearing warmongers, and simply ignorant jackasses who live only to “spread God’s word” by cramming hate and hypocrisy down other people’s throats, I think it’s agreeable between non-believers and believers alike that the infamous Westboro Baptist Church are the most notably mentionable in the history of such.
I mean, the assholes picket dead soldiers funerals, for fuck’s sake.
On top of all the other horrible things they do, the Westboro Baptist Church actually believes that the reason events such as the bombing in Boston, the school shootings, and basically anything bad that happens, is because God is punishing us for homosexuality. In their minds, God is angry at us and is punishing us with atrocities because we don’t hate homosexuals.
Westboro is also responsible for shaming and protesting the funerals of deemed “sinful” celebrities, saying that any celebrity who’s credentials were not shared with God deserved to burn in hell.
I could go on extensively about all the shit the Westboro Baptist Church has done. They’re hateful, they’re hypocritical, disrespectful, inconsiderate, rude, and possibly a tad bit psychotic. I could write an entire blog about all the events and pickets and protests and interviews that Westboro Baptist Church has appalled the nation with.
But, that’s extremely cliche—and it’s also too easy.
Instead, I’ve decided pose a question. The answer to the question may seem obvious to most people, but I want you to continue reading the article, and really THINK about the question.
The questions is, SHOULD THE WESTBORO BAPTIST CHURCH BE ALLOWED TO PICKET AND PROTEST IN THE MANNER THEY DO?
Now, I’d like to provide a little bit of background as to why I’m writing this blog, and why I’m posing this question. A few days ago in a United States History Class I’m taking for credits, we were discussing the first amendment of the United States Constitution. The first amendment, as we all should know, guarantees us the right to free speech, the right to petition the government, the right to assembly, and the right to freedom of religion (among a few other principles). We elaborated specifically on the topic of freedom of speech, and what that means to other countries that don’t have it. Our teacher questioned us on why it’s important and fortunate to have free speech. Luckily, we have a diverse range of views throughout our class, from the far left to the far right. Despite our differing views, we all decided that freedom of speech is one of the greatest rights we have in the country of America, as well as in the world, and that under VERY few, if not any circumstances should that natural right be limited. What was extraordinarily interesting about our discussion was our teacher’s consistent challenging on the subject. He asked very particular questions, such as “Do extremist minorities deserve the right to free speech?” “If that speech is disrespectful to others or our country as a whole, should it be allowed and protected under our Constitution?” I thought he would be going somewhere with such articulate questioning, but we ended up moving on— temporarily.
Following the discussion, we moved onto other amendments, addressed key elements and wording in the second amendment, and discussed the Bill of Rights. Towards the end of class, the teacher said that we were near a unit test, and that we had been working hard. He said he wanted to show us a video he had just found recently, and turned on the overhead projector. He then played this video from YouTube. I encourage you to watch, even if you’ve seen it before. It’ll help fuel the transitions.
The video angered many students. Clips of the protesters kicking around the American flag angered students especially, and the pickets of fallen soldiers even brought a few to tears. The way these people could show up to someones funeral and basically preach to them that God wants, and perhaps craves dead American soldiers with such persistence and seriousness dumbfounded the majority of the classroom.
What our teacher did next, was brilliant.
Our teacher then asked, “Does the Westboro Baptist Church have the right to do that?”
Here were some of the responses:
“These guys should be arrested for kicking around the American flag.”
“Protesting at a funeral should be illegal! I mean can’t they pick another place to do that? The families are already grieving, it’s just making it worse!”
“These assholes should burn in Hell.”
“They guys have no right to be doing that.”
“I know we have free speech, but this is too far.”
Every response from a student would instigate a grin on the teachers face. With each response, the grin grew wider. Finally, he began laughing.
Obviously, everyone in the class was puzzled. Even me. It wasn’t until my next class later on in the day when it finally hit me.
In case you haven’t caught it yet, our teacher had tricked us. Our teacher had brought out the hypocrisy of how we think, and how we judge what people do based on “‘Murican” standards and morals and ideas, especially fundamental ideas that date back all the way to the Founding Fathers infamous document known as the almighty Constitution.
What our teacher had just taught us was that no matter what our opinions are, no matter how much we disagree, and no matter how wrong one may be, free speech is inevitable in America. Under our Constitution, free speech is an ensured natural right that nobody any ANY circumstances should be deprived of.
Whether or not you’re a Republican, a Democrat, a Wiccan, a Hindu, a Buddhist, a Scientologist, or the Westboro Baptist Church, you have and deserve the right to say what you want. You have the right to protest funerals, and church activities, and secular activities, industries, wall streets, lemonade stands, and schools. You have the right to speak your mind.
We are lucky enough to live in a country where one of the most basic principles of our systems of rights and wrongs is the right to say what we want. Whether we like it or not, we HAVE to let people say what they want to say, even if they wanna tell the world that the sky is purple, the Earth is flat, and God lets people die in explosions and massacres because he hates homosexuals. When we make biased decisions to censor people because their ideas are different, dramatic, insane, new, old, or anything in between, we violate ourselves as American people. We further divide ourselves as individuals who need nothing more right now than to stick together, and work as people to solve problems and build things and inform people.
The Westboro Baptist Church is barely recognized as a “church”. Some call them crazy. Some call them a cult. Some call them The Devil. With that, my fellow people, SHOULD THE WESTBORO BAPTIST CHURCH BE ALLOWED TO PICKET AND PROTEST IN THE MANNER THEY DO?
biblewtfs 