Ban Immoral Rhetoric

On a sunny day, an eight-year-old clutches a sign as another child might hold a doll. Printed on it in big block letters are the words “God Hates F*gs.”

Signs with similar sentiments were displayed at the funeral of Lance Corporal Matthew Snyder, who was killed in Iraq by a roadside bomb. Members of the Westboro Baptist Church protested outside his funeral, claiming that his death was a result of America's support of homosexuality and a “war on God.” They handed out pamphlets that read, “Thank God for IED's – Come witness the burial of an a**.”

Matthew's father sued the church in a case that has reached the Supreme Court. However, the Westboro Baptist Church continues to organize protests across the country. They even attempted a protest at the funeral of Christina Taylor-Green, who was killed in the recent massacre in Tucson, Arizona.

I know that a legal precedent protecting hate speech of this sort was created in National Socialist Party of America vs. Skokie (a case in which Neo-Nazis planned to marched through a predominantly Jewish part of Chicago that was home to many Holocaust survivors), yet I cannot condone the actions of the Westboro Baptist Church. What is more important – creating a legal precedent that could potentially eliminate hate speech from this country forever, or protecting the rhetoric of a group that “thanks God for the shooter” who killed a nine-year-old girl in cold blood? What is more important – allowing the wounds of the grieving to heal, or protecting the rights of a group to “thank God” for a mother who shot her own kids. The Founding Fathers did not intend free speech to be used as an instrument to broadcast the message “thank God for five more dead soldiers; only 5,000 more to go.”

Protecting such putrid speech must not be considered a righteous cause. If we, as citizens of the United States, want to bask in the light of morality, we must cast aside the immoral rhetoric and “thank God” that we did so with such fervor.