Veterans groups, members of Congress, state legislatures and church groups nationwide have spoken forcefully against the despicable protests conducted at funerals for fallen GIs by members of a fringe Kansas church that claims U.S. soldiers are dying in combat because "God hates fags."
The 70-member church, most of whose members are from the family of 80-year-old Pastor Fred Phelps Sr., has virtually no meaningful support anywhere. They unquestionably represent America's most unpopular and most despised group.
But that is precisely the type of hateful public speech that the U.S. Constitution's First Amendment is designed to protect—unpopular, reviled, evil, hurtful—even untrue—speech.
Justices of the U.S. Supreme Court this week will have heard arguments by the Westboro Baptist Church of Topeka that its demonstrations at GI funerals are constitutional free speech. The father of one such fallen Marine triggered the high court hearing by appealing a lower court's reversal of $11 million in damages he was awarded in a lawsuit against the church.
Considering the Supreme Court's prevailing majority of "strict constructionists," a ruling expected next year should uphold the church's right to continue its unseemly demonstrations.
Exploiting the death of GIs and the grief of families to promote their mischief is an excruciatingly abhorrent violation of civility and taste. Even so, as the late, conservative Chief Justice William Rehnquist wrote in a past First Amendment case, "In the world of debate about public affairs, many things done with motives that are less than admirable are protected by the First Amendment, even when a speaker or writer is motivated by hatred or ill-will."
By now, it must've dawned on the Kansas church members that the same free-speech protections they enjoy are being used amply and effectively by others to snuff out their messages of hate.
Some 200,000 male and female military veterans and bikers have banded together nationally as the Patriot Guard Riders to attend GI funerals and stand as a fence between protesters and grieving families.
Politicians and media commentators have condemned and denounced the church and its members, and well they should. The Internal Revenue Service also has been asked to review the Westboro church's tax-exempt status, one more discomfort and price for spewing its venom.
Protecting such vulgar gambits with the force of the Constitution is often difficult to accept. However, the alternative—government deeming what words are acceptable during protests—would be disastrous to a society that thrives on ideas and public discourse.
