Hate speech preaching

Last week, the Westboro Baptist Church, an independent Baptist community, continued its protesting at military funerals despite laws passed to prevent it from doing just this. On Memorial Day, President Bush signed a law banning protests within 300 feet of a national cemetery -- yet members of the church have picketed at 15 funerals in 13 states since the beginning of August. And this comes after 10 of those states also passed laws to restrict their activities. They even protested at a Sept. 11 commemoration held at the site of the United Airlines Flight 93 crash. \nAt the protests, the group has held up signs saying "God hates fags," "God hates the USA" and "Too late to pray." After first becoming well-known in 1998 by picketing the funeral of murdered gay college student Matthew Shepard, they have since stated that the Sept. 11 attacks were God's way of punishing America for its national acceptance of gays. \nAnother claim the group makes, maybe its most ridiculous, is that the seven astronauts who died in the Space Shuttle Columbia crash are burning in hell and that they were killed as a punishment for not using their position as astronauts to speak out against homosexuality. \nPastor Fred Phelps, the leader of the church, said he believes that the laws passed are unconstitutional because they infringe on free speech. Ironically, Phelps used to be a civil rights lawyer, and the American Civil Liberties Union is helping challenge the laws in Ohio and Missouri. The ACLU says the laws limit speech and must be fought to protect everyone's rights.\n"Today it's a group we don't like. Tomorrow it could be us that are silenced," said Tony Rothert of the ACLU of Eastern Missouri. \nWhile I can understand where the ACLU is coming from in terms of protecting free speech, I don't necessarily think that laws keeping hate groups away from funerals is such a bad idea. While a peaceful protest is not illegal, there are also things called trespassing and harassment. While people have the right to free speech, they also have the right not to hear other people's speech if they don't want to. Furthermore, hate groups such as these should be under careful watch everywhere they go. Families and friends of a fallen soldier deserve to be protected from dangerous, psychotic groups. Making them stay a reasonable distance away from military funerals could prevent violent confrontations and allow the church members to still protest with their absurd, hate-filled messages. \nWhat's particularly odd about their message is that if they feel that it's too late to pray, then why are they bothering to announce such findings at a funeral? If it's too late to pray, then why would they care if people did pray? Their odd, mixed messages show that the group is only out for the publicity that the mainstream media is giving them.