Dear editor,
Wayne Laugesen’s column on our funeral picketing and SCOTUS case (while better than most) derailed a few times.
Not “I hate you.” “God hates you.” Big difference. Stop acting startled; crack a Bible and read it. God hates the disobedient. Did you miss that whole “hell” thing people? What’s that, a love tour?
We’re the only ones who love our fellow man. The rest watch them sprint to destruction, faux-fearful of hurting their feeeeeeel-liiiiiiings. Haters.
KKK is just another false religion resting on human hate. 
They’ve got an idol tucked in their pocket to worship over God like everyone else. Yawn.
Here’s what’s hard to imagine: A nation blessed of God giving itself the glory instead of God, and bringing all that majesty to destruction. So you could fornicate, divorce/remarry, and embrace same-sex marriage. Just think how blessed this nation would be if you had only obeyed God!
Free will? Nonsense! No Bible for it. It’s the lie choking this land. For it is God which worketh in you both to will and to do of his good pleasure, Php. 2:13. God holds the breath of your life; he turns your heart as he wills. Free will? Fix your economy and other messes. Get those billions out of hell who live there today.
We were out of sight and sound at the faithless father’s funeral. That’s not enough for this brutish nation. You want a law saying we can’t tell you the soldiers died for your sins-any time, any place, any manner. That pierces your conscience with the immovable force of truth. And you have no plans to stop sinning. Awkward for you.
It’s too late for the dead soldier. You should have obeyed. It’ll be too late for this nation soon – your doom is imminent.
-WBC
PS It’s pastor Phelps, not reverend; that’s God’s title only. Ps. 111:9. Whore false prophets love it, because they love to lord it over you, while they lie your backsides straight to hell. Disgraceful!
Answering: http://www.gazette.com/opinion/hate-96899-right-trouble.html
COLORADO SPRINGS THE GAZETTE
OUR VIEW: Our God-given right to hate (vote in poll; comment)
2010-04-09
Americans have a right to hate. Freedom’s in trouble if we may no longer say “I hate you” from public space.
The Rev. Fred Phelps and the Westboro Baptist Church picket funerals with colorful signs that say God hates (warning: their website is highly offensive). The protesters, composed mostly of skilled lawyers and their kids, are so extreme that the Ku Klux Klan, LLC, denounced them in a press release that has a permanent home on the front page of the organization’s website (news release below, for those who don’t care to visit Klan website).
News Release
Disclaimer:
NOTE: The Ku Klux Klan, LLC. has not or EVER will have ANY connection with The "Westboro Baptist Church". We absolutely repudiate their activities.
The Ku Klux Klan, LLC.
870-427-2819
"We agree with Pastor Phelps’ minsitry, in that we agree with a lot of what he says," said Travis Pierce, national membership director of the Ku Klux Klan, LLC, in an interview with The Gazette’s editorial department. "We disagree with his protest methods. To protest at funerals of service members, who have died protecting their right to protest, is just wrong. They are punishing the grieving parties by doing this."
By contrast, the 4th Circuit Court of Appeals awarded Westboro protesters money, at the expense of a grieving party.
Most Americans know the story. Lance Cpl. Matthew Snyder was killed in action in Iraq in 2006. Westboro picketers showed up outside Snyder’s funeral with signs that said: “You’re going to hell;” “God hates you”; “Thank God for dead soldiers;” and “Thank God for 9/11.” Phelps, once a great civil rights attorney who liberated women and blacks, believes God kills soldiers because the United States tolerates homosexuality.
Albert Snyder found the Westboro picketers at his son’s funeral so offensive that he sued and won $5 million. Westboro attorney Margie Phelps, a picketer and the daughter of Fred Phelps, led the appeal. She persuaded a panel of 4th Circuit judges to overturn the lower court’s ruling, and the judges ordered Snyder to pay Westboro more than $16,000 in court costs.
Margie Phelps said the money will be used to fund protests at the funerals of other dead service men and women. She has spoken gleefully about the fact that the person who tried to stop the protests will fund them.
The drama isn’t over. The U.S. Supreme Court has agreed to hear the case this fall. The outcome has potentially frightening ramifications for freedom.
(Please vote in poll to the right, in red type. Must vote to see results. Thanks!)
The court will determine the constitutionality of laws passed to protect the “sanctity and dignity” of memorial and funeral services. The ruling will determine how far governments, cemeteries and churches can go in establishing picket-free zones and “floating buffers” to protect mourners from offensive messages.
It’s hard to imagine our country is home to a group of highly educated, successful people who espouse love for a God who they believe mostly hates. It’s hard to imagine a group so hateful even the Ku Klux Klan denounces it in writing. It’s hard to imagine that a group denounced by the Klan gets an award from federal judges.
Freedom is messy and always will be.
Phelps and Westboro are ugly. It’s easy to understand why some would use force of law to whisk them from sight and mind. Most people love and respect American soldiers for sacrificing their lives. Most people have only reverence for funerals and the survivors who mourn at them. It’s enticing to imagine laws that keep Westboro picketers at such a distance that they are not seen or heard. If Americans could vote to silence the mean pickets, they might overwhelmingly favor such a move. But the law won’t allow for any such vote, and ugliness isn’t a crime.
Reverence, respect, kindness, beauty, dignity and order are important considerations. But they are not protected by law, nor should they be. They may seem more attractive than liberty, but they are less important.
If God hates some people, it seems Phelps and his acolytes would surely be among them. But God so loves freedom he has never taken it from anyone. If God didn’t love free will, then God would not allow the drunk to cross the center line and kill innocent victims. He would have intervened on Sept. 11. If God didn’t love free will, bad things would never happen to good people.
We are a world in which all have free will, and in this country the government protects free will, which manifests itself in some of the most disgusting forms of communication imaginable.
Nobody should picket a funeral. If you picket a funeral, you are a bad person. But it’s also an activity protected by the First Amendment. Cities and states may impose reasonable restrictions to keep picketers at a distance that maintains reasonable privacy and unrestricted movement for mourners. But they have no authority to enforce laws that would protect people from hearing or seeing messages communicated from public space. We have freedom OF speech, not freedom FROM speech.
It’s frightening to think that the Supreme Court might be swayed by the nearly universal reverence for funerals of military heroes and the likelihood of public support for suppression of hateful pickets. Justices must not allow emotion to prevail. This case involves the most fundamental law of the land – the law that allows us to communicate controversial ideas, including hatred. If the high court rules against Westboro Baptist, it permanently harms the country by eroding free speech. In an odd twist, the mean people will win. They will erode fundamental freedom in a country they hate.
– Wayne Laugesen, editorial page editor, for the editorial board