Anti Sharia Press Conference at White House

There is an article on The Blaze about the press conference today.  A liberal leaning media outfit was there and took video of people surrounding a Muslim man while he was praying.  Now, he didn't have a prayer rug nor did he take his shoes off and I thought that was a little odd, as that is part of the rituals of Muslim prayer. 

The Anti Sharia people who held the press conference left before this incident happened.  That is a fact.  But, the media report was correct in the fact that some people who there to attend the rally/press conference did participate in the surrounding of the man.   Also, the man was in no danger.  The Park Police were right there if anyone had been stupid enough to try and hurt him, they would have been stopped immediately.  Which no one tried to harm him in anyway.  While I do believe the majority of the people surrounding him were part of the crazy Koran burning church from Florida, which has ties to Westboro. 

I also had another odd incident happen.  In between the press conference ending and the praying man incident I was talking to some people that I met from New York and some local people that I know from the Tea Party.  We had a guy come up to us with another man taking video.  He asked us if we wanted to burn the Koran.  I just went off.  I told the guy to get away from us, we wanted nothing to do with Koran burning and we would not allow him to bait us into doing or saying something stupid so they could put us all over the leftie blogosphere as bigots.  You know for someone who is as shy as I am, I have gotten pretty good at this.  The guy did come back to us later and apologize and told us he was a conservative and thought we were with the Koran burners.  The police had moved them to another location during the press conference. 

You can't make your own decision about the behaviour of these people.  I personally found it horrible. His consitutional rights give him the right to pray.  The constitution protects everyone.  I didn't know this at the time, but he had nothing to do with the days events, he prays there every few days. 

The High Court Rightly Defends Westboro Crazies Right to Protest

The SCOTUS decision on the Westboro Church's protests of military funerals was released today.  The decision was 8-1, Alito being the only dissenter.  As much as I find the members of the Westboro Church to be crazy and offensive, this was the right decision.  Free speech and the right to assemble must be protected. 

There also has been misunderstanding of the case.  While protesting this particular funeral the family wasn't even aware of the presence of the protesters until they were told about it from someone seeing media reports.  In no way did they interrupt the services.  They had legal permits and stayed within the distances that the permits required them to, I believe it was 1,000 feet.  More and more states are putting laws into place about the distance people must stay away from funeral services.  The Church may be full of crazies, but they are not stupid and do follow the letter of the law. 

The one thing that I have always kept in mind during this case was the fact that I have become involved in going to protests and want my view points to be heard.  As an example here are some comments on Huffington Post on this case:

I blame hate speech for the GOP being so radicalize­d right now.



Of course, this SCOTUS rules in favor of right wing hate speech. Why would we expect this group to actually come down in favor of common sense. Funny how first amendment protection­s are no longer extended to journalist­s and whistleblo­wers.
 
I am so ready for Hate Speech laws.



Gee, maybe the Church is Right.



As much as I hate what these people have to say, which is quite disgusting­, I agree with this decision..­.free speech is free speech, no matter how vile, stupid, and racist. See the Tea Party and many in the conservati­ve party.

 The problem is if I am unwilling to stand for their right to speech and to protest mine will be taken away next.  Giving them the right to protest is in no way endorsing what they say, it is just protecting my rights to do the same.  If Westboro's right to protest was taken away, someone would be coming for the Tea Party next.  Freedom is not free, even the speech you find offensive has the same protections. 

Westboro Crazies Coming to Town

Staff Sgt. Matthew J. West will be laid to rest on Thursday Sept 23 at noon. 

Westboro is planning on attending to protest.  If you live locally and are able, please come and line the streets so his family will not have to be subjected to this disrespect for their child. 

http://www.westborobaptistchurch.com/fliers/20100910_Dead-Soldier-Arlington-VA-Matthew-J-West.pdf

A Fallen Soldier and the Supreme Court

The Supreme Court announced three cases it will be hearing in the fall. One is the ability for parents to sue manufacturers of vaccines. Currently it is illegal to sue for any damages that may be caused by the shots, the logic being few pharmaceuticals will be willing to create the vaccines if they are spending gobs of money defending against lawsuits. The law is in place for the “common good”. Another case is based on the extensive background checks performed by NASA in order to obtain employment. The third is privacy vs. free speech issue.



The Westboro Baptist Church in Topeka, Kansas is a fundamentalist Baptist church. As fundamentalists they take a very dim view of homosexuality. They showed up at the funeral of Lance Corporal Matthew A. Snyder of Westminster, MD. He was killed in March of 2006. These church members have gone to military funerals all over the country wearing shirts that say Godhatesfags.com and carrying signs with slogans such as God hates America, Thank God for IED’s, Thank God for dead soldiers, and Priests rape boys.

Their belief is that soldiers dying in Afghanistan and Iraq are a punishment from God due to America’s acceptance of homosexuality; a vile and hateful point of view. The fallen marine’s family was understandably disturbed and filed a lawsuit on the grounds of privacy violations. The jury awarded the family $11 million for severe emotional distress; the sitting judge lowered the award to $5 million. The church appealed the judgment and the fourth district court threw out the verdict and the award on the grounds of free speech. In the written decision the court said in part “imaginative and hyperbolic rhetoric” is protected by the first amendment.


At stake in this case are fundamental constitutional rights: freedom of speech, the right to assembly, and a basic right to privacy. The soldier’s family expected to be able to mourn in private. Soldier’s families rightfully feel violated and appalled at the behavior of Phelps and his parishioners. These people give good Christians a bad name when they spew this irrational hatred. Especially when you consider children as young as 10 are being brought to these protests. It is beyond despicable.


Our soldiers are heroes. They willing put their lives on the line to defend our constitutional rights. They do this for little money and not much glory. Soldiers deserve our eternal gratitude.


When the Iraq war was not going well, there were protests all over the country. Many took place in my own backyard of Washington, DC. I spoke with a guy who at the time was a Marine. He was recently back from Iraq. He was involved in the initial stages of the invasion; his job was to protect the oil fields. At this time the accusations of war crimes were being hurled by the likes of John Murtha. His response to me was that although he was personally hurt and offended by the comments he would rather live in a country that people were allowed to speak freely than in one where you could not. That was the reason he joined the military in the first place. At the time, I was a little stunned and didn’t fully appreciate his point of view, but eventually I realized he was right. All speech must be protected from censorship; even when it comes from people who are as vile of the members of Westboro.


I would think that we can set up a protest free zone for the families of the fallen so they can say their good-byes in a respectful fashion without violating the rights of free speech that their loved ones died to protect.