[b said:
Quote[/b] ]clearly they're trying really hard to make this woman out to be the most unreasonable, awful person imaginable.
They don't need to, she does that herself just fine.
[b said:
Quote[/b] ]My guess is that this was a good opportunity to try and squash an embarassing anti-war press event without obviously violating the first amendment
Illogical; if it was about quashing anti-war protests, why would they make the law specific to only funerals and memorials?
The law is about enforcing some darn courtesy since these wastes of skin don't have any.
[b said:
Quote[/b] ] but so far as the war goes, I think she might be on to something... Maybe if we thought more about what this war is costing us (our families, civility, resources, and respect among the other nations of the world) and less about how glorious it is to dominate other countries we'd be in better shape.
Did you even listen to her? She's not talking about the cost of war, she's claiming that every bad things that's happened is divine judgement because we don't make homosexuality a felony.
Look into the Westboro Baptist Church. There's no subtle commentary, no fine points, none of that. They're raving extremists, pure and simple. Seriously, can you expect well-reasoned points from a church who's URL is "www.godhatesfags.com"?
[b said:
Quote[/b] ]And I think it's worth noting that the funeral that was protested had over 1000 guests, which seems suspect to me. 1000 mourners for a single person? You can be sure that this was not just an affair of their close friends and family. I think that, even if it was mean-spirited, this was probably the most justifiable scenario for this type of protest. Lots of people, most of them probably military types, all in a more receptive state than usual after the loss of an acquaintance. These are people that need to hear that there are Americans who want the war to end. Not only that, but a lot of the ceremony behind military funerals seem to glorify war and blind obedience and justify the (often empty) sacrifices that soldiers are forced to make. As ugly as their messages were, I think the protesters were a good counterpoint to the propoganda that the military perpetuates through it's pomp and ceremony. It's great to say, 'Support our troops,' but when we do so we need to think about soldiers as individual human beings and not as faceless automatons put on this Earth solely for the service of our military.
Whether some of those people are there for the right reason or not, what antiquated military ceremonies are going on, and how receptive some people might be is all irrelevant. None of those, *none* can make it acceptable to yell and hold signs informing the grieving family who lost someone a tragic way that their son/daughter/whatever *deserved* this and is going to hell?
There are plenty of appropriate venues for anti-war protests; the funerals of soldiers is not one of them. If you can't make you point in a dignified manner, you don't have a point worth making; if you need to milk emotion rather than logic, your cause is worthless. This goes for all sides.
--------------------------------------
Personally, I'm surprised in the least. I've known about this specific church for a long, long time due to their stance as virulent homophobes. They've been pulling this exact same poop at the funerals of gay individuals for *decades*, and the government has done squat.
In a way, I'm glad they're doing this; now the rest of the world gets to see what it's like. I think every one of them is a waste of otherwise useful protien, and frankly would kill them all with less thought or feeling than I give to what to have to lunch, but I'm glad that other groups are getting to know what it feels like to be hated. Maybe then the government will take a little pity on those it's made into second-class citizens to appease the christian taliban.
Mokele