“Congress shall make no law … abridging the freedom of speech.” So reads a part of the First Amendment to our U.S. Constitution. Freedom of speech is one of the most popular of our freedoms, especially when it is our speech that is being heard, but perhaps less so when the subject is the speech of others with whose views we don’t agree.
There are people whose opinions are just so diametrically opposed to those of the majority, or the way in which those views and opinions are expressed is just so irritating and contrary to accepted behavior, that people hearing or seeing them quickly leap to the conclusion that the speaker or actor should be silenced and the message outlawed.
A case in point of this type of speech is that of the small Westboro Baptist Church located in Topeka, Kansas, which is apparently not affiliated with any other churches of that denomination. The Church is headed by Pastor Fred Phelps, a disbarred attorney, and consists of some 70 members, many of whom consist of his 13 children and numerous grandchildren. The Church has gained notoriety – or, shall we say, infamy – far beyond what one might expect from one of its size.
The way that Westboro Baptist Church has become well-known is through the exercise of its freedom to express its views on just about every aspect of American life that it opposes – and that includes virtually all aspects of American life. It believes that we are a doomed country and that we’re all going to hell because almost everything we do is contrary to God’s will.
Initially, the Church targeted Jewish institutions, sending numerous anti-Semitic materials to them, and more recently sending members to picket in person with signs stating “The Jews Killed Jesus,” “God Hates Israel,” “God Hates Jews” and other such language.
The Church also targeted homosexuals in American society, and this seems to have become its central focus. Initially, the Church gave voice to its opposition to gays and lesbians by picketing at schools and other churches that they deemed to be sympathetic to homosexuals or to AIDS victims. They protested against homosexuals at funerals for people who die of AIDS, and at the 1998 funeral of Matthew Shepard, a gay student who was severely beaten in Wyoming and left to die tied to a fence. While this earned the Church some attention, it was nothing compared to what came later.
In 2005, Church members began appearing at the funerals and memorial services for American soldiers who have been killed in Iraq or Afghanistan with signs stating, among other things, “Thank God for Dead Soldiers,” “Thank God for Maimed Soldiers,” “God Hates Fags,” “God Hates America,” “Thank God for IEDs” (IEDs are roadside bombs that target American soldiers), and other equally repulsive messages. The Church obtains the dates and locations of the services from a web site maintained by the Pentagon.
Of course, it’s one thing to say offensive things about homosexuals – not many people outside the homosexual community and a few liberals got upset about that – but it’s quite another thing to appear at the funerals of American soldiers who have given their lives in service of their country and exercise your freedom of speech by saying that God is happy that they died and that those dead soldiers are going to Hell. The Church has ruffled a lot of feathers and obtained a lot of publicity, which is one of its goals.
When Pastor Fred Phelps was asked why he had no empathy for the families of the soldiers, he replied: “What I’m sorry about is that they raised their children for the devil in hell.” This calls to mind Winston Churchill’s famous remark that Lord Beaverbrook, a political opponent, “could give sodomy a bad name.” Fred Phelps and his band of followers can invoke sympathy for the Sodomites.
These misguided and disgusting tactics by the Westboro Baptist Church are justified by them on two basis: first, they believe that God hates the United States because it tolerates homosexuality, and that the deaths of the U.S. soldiers are God’s punishment for that tolerance; and second, they claim the right to express these views in demonstrations at a soldier’s funeral under the First Amendment right to free speech.
Lawsuits have been filed, and the father of one soldier whose funeral was protested by the Church obtained a judgment against the Church for almost $11 million – much of it in punitive damages. However, that hasn’t seemed to slow the Church in its protests. State legislatures are passing or debating enactment of laws to make such demonstrations more difficult and less intrusive. The problem with drafting such laws is that the Church is probably right that their activities are protected – at least to some extent – by their freedom of speech.
The American Civil Liberties Union – hated by many because of its defense of unpopular people and organizations in the exercise of their freedoms – defends the Church’s position on their freedom of speech, although it doesn’t seem to condone their methods. The ACLU, which undoubtedly opposes the Church’s position on rights of homosexuals, is assisting in the drafting of legislation that would balance the Church’s right to protest with a deceased soldier’s family’s entitlement to some modicum of privacy and decorum.
Most people would write off the Church’s positions and actions as just another example of religion taken to an extreme were it not for their exercise of “free speech” to express those views in the most public and obnoxious way. In cases like this, it is difficult to accept the often-stated position that, “if we don’t believe in freedom of speech for people with whom we disagree, then we don’t believe in it at all.”
A former Supreme Court Justice once remarked that “Some of our most basic rights have arisen from cases involving some not-so-very nice people.” The members of the Westboro Baptist Church are in that category, but in time they will be nothing but a bad memory. At that time we will still have our Freedom of Speech, and perhaps it will be stronger because we tolerated their perverse exercise of that freedom.
(Richard Mays, a Heber Springs attorney and environmentalist, offers a liberal viewpoint on politics and social issues in each Friday’s edition)
