Someone
in Alabama is burning down Baptist churches -- at least 10 since
Feb. 2, according to USA Today. Shall we ask The
New York Times to take responsibility for creating a culturally
insensitive environment toward evangelical Christians?
No, of course not;
we don't do that. We believe in free speech as well as religious
liberty.
But just as I'm ready
to sign onto the First Amendment absolutist brigade (buy Danish,
anyone?), another news story catches my eye: a disgusting political
protest at a soldier's funeral by the tiny cult church that styles
itself Westboro Baptist. The pastor there, Fred Phelps, is famous
because his group's signs ("God Hates Fags") are so
perfectly aligned with the national media's preferred view of
morally conservative Christians as hate-mongers that they are
always in the news.
His latest crusade?
Protesting soldiers' funerals on the grounds that their deaths
show God hates homo-loving America. To Google up the ugliness
in local media is to reveal at the same time a litany of all that
is good and decent in American life.
From the (Galesburg,
Ill.) Register-Mail: On Nov. 16, 2005, 20 Knox College students
lined the middle of Academy Street to block the family's views
of the ugly shouts and signs of the Westboro cult during the funeral
procession of Sgt. 1st Class Kyle Wehrly. Gary Reed showed up
to help. "I was never in the service, but my father was.
A fallen soldier should be supported."
The Nov.
1 Greeley (Colo.) Tribune reports seven Westboro
protestors showed up at Army Pfc. Tyler MacKenzie's funeral. Within
seconds, about 50 motorcyclists from the Christian Motorcycle
Association, Leatherneck motorcycle group and Harley owners group
revved up their engines, seeking to drown the protestors' ugly
shouts. Others who moved to block the family's view of the protestors
included 10 military mothers from the Rocky Mountain Military
Moms, members of the U.S. Seagoing Marine Association, Marine
Corps League, Combat Vets Association and Grunt.com, a Marine
group. "We're protecting the family from them," said
Gus Quist, 50, of Fort Collins, who came with the Harley owners
group.
In Marblehead, Mass.,
it was the funeral of Army Special Forces Staff Sgt. Christopher
Piper of Marblehead, and the police bagpipe band drowned out the
protest. The Claremore (Okla.) Daily Progress reported that the
American Legions Riders motorcycle club of southeast Kansas used
their engines to drown out protests during the funeral of Staff
Sgt. John Glen Doles.
Rev. Richard Billings,
the pastor who had married Doles to his wife in 1995, eulogized
him as a "hero who gave everything for the freedoms we enjoy
as Americans. ... He will continue to bless all of us with the
freedoms he laid down his life to preserve -- here in America,
where we can pledge our allegiance to a flag, one nation -- where?"
"Under God,"
replied the collective crowd.
"This is Oklahoma
-- we can still say that here," he said.
Frustrated and appalled
legislators in five states are seeking to ban protests at funerals.
Sounds reasonable to me. I don't think such a law would be inconsistent
with democratic freedom, any more than I believe the First Amendment
really does require us to permit flag burning.
And so too I can imagine
with much disturbance that (say) a democratic Iraq could choose
to ban depictions of Muhammad. It is perfectly possible to protect
sacred symbols or sacred moments in ways that do not violate core
principles of free speech necessary to robust, democratic life.
What I still
can't understand are 12 Danish cartoonists hiding for their lives
for drawing cartoons that violate neither the law nor the customs
of their own country. Or the people in the United States, from
The New York Times to Bill Clinton, who see insensitivity
to Muslims as the problem thereby revealed.
Copyright
2006 Maggie Gallagher
