[quote]gendou57 wrote:
PGJ wrote:
These people intentionally inflict pain and anguish on innocent people. Why do we tolerate and protect them?
Because it is the insistence that we tolerate which we find intolerable that epitomizes free speech.
If they’re not yelling about running in and flipping over the coffin, or yelling “Come get us, Fag Lovers” at the funeral attendees, then the State has no right to withhold them.
The only effective way to stop them is to either ignore them, which is not only hard but in my opinion the last thing we want to do, like ignoring a cancer, or drown them out, which people have been doing somewhat effectively.
These people won’t stop. Even if there WERE laws in place to stop them they wouldn’t stop, and then the government would be putting people in jail for protesting. A funeral, yes, but still arresting someone for protesting goes against a great deal of what America stands for.
Personally, I’m trying to find a ride to one of the funerals the Phelps will be attending. Hopefully I can help drown them out, or at least show people that we won’t take their bullshit lying down.
Here’s hoping they don’t show.
-Gendou[/quote]
But they AREN’T protesting. They just show up and start insulting and heckling the greiving family. Usually, when people protest, they want something (social change, ending a war, equality). These guys don’t do that. They condemn people. They don’t offer any solution.
I think if a member of a greiving family just snapped and took out the Phelps clan as they were “protesting” a famly members funeral, they could legitimately claim they were provoked. No jury would convict them.