Taking it Too Far

When you think of who might be callous enough to organize an anti-American soldiers protest at the funeral of a soldier, you might guess the protestors to be liberals of some stripe. Liberals traditionally don't support the war (although we do support the people of the armed forces, try as you might to throw it in our faces), and so they're about the only people who protest war related stuff. The person you see at the left, and the organization they belong to, aren't liberals, don't support our soldiers, and are full of bigoted hate. For all of the details, please read this brief CNN story.

To me, this group has all the makings of a religious weirdo cult (no offense to religion). The leader is a Baptist preacher named Fred Phelps (his congregation is mostly his family). Mr. Phelps feels it's important to preach God's hate. From what I've learned of Christianity (of which I'm a lifetime member), God is a fount of love, with little of no room for hate. But since American soldiers represent the American government, and the government is pro homosexuality, and God hates gays, so it follows that soldiers are pro homo (and God hates them too). It's okay, I see a couple missing links in that chain too. These people have gone so far down the path of darkness that even the most bigoted, homophobic, conservative people I know would be sick to see what they're doing. I know I am.

Since a live soldier probably wouldn't take any crap from these people, they have to heckle the families of casualties. This just causes more emotional stress for people that have more than enough already. Don't like gays? There are plenty of more constructive (at least as constructive as bigotry gets) ways to go about expressing yourself.

I just can't get my mind to follow this twisted logic. Only a few states recognize same sex marriages, and in more than a few, interest is high enough to put "marriage definitions" laws on ballots. The president himself tried to rally his religious-right supporters by calling for an amendment to the U.S. Constitution that banned same sex marriage (thankfully, the non bigoted part of America shot that down). To me, America seems to lean anti-gay. The Phelps Cult just seems so full of hate that it's poisoning them. That's the only reason I can come up with. Thankfully, a group of compassionate citizens has formed (the Patriot Guard Riders), and families don't have to hear about how God hates them throughout one of the hardest hours of their lives.

Of course, the constitution guarantees the right to assemble and protest, and I suppose that's what you'd call this, but human decency calls for restraint in certain situations. This is one of those situations, and it should be embarrassing that the man who lacks this simple courtesy claims to be a man of God. I should think that his God could tell him that he's crossed an invisible line here.