Imagine just for one moment that your mother has died. You are at her funeral, trying your best to cope with your distraught emotions, trying to keep it together, yet at the same time wanting to grieve, to let it out. Your friends and other family members are there to comfort you. They are grieving too. Not as badly as you are, perhaps, but they share to a limited extent your pain, your barely consolable grief, your anguish. You try to remember the good times, to remember her in all those positive ways. It’s hard, but you try, even though, at times, this makes it only worse. You also feel a sense of guilt. If only you hadn’t had that last argument. If only you had told her how much you loved her, how much she had meant to you over the years, how much you appreciated the sacrifices, the values she had tried to instill in you. You hope that she was proud of you, and more importantly, you hope she knows beyond any doubt how much you truly loved her.
You look out over the crowds of consolers, and you notice a male figure approaching, dressed in a suit. You have never seen him before, do not know who he is, but that’s okay, your mother was a well loved, respected woman. Certainly not perfect, by any means. Like all human beings, she has make her share of mistakes. But she was a good woman, a loving mother, a woman admired and respected by all those who truly knew her. And so, it makes sense that some strangers would arrive to pay their repects. Strangers such as the man you see now, approaching your mothers open coffin, with a determined look on his face, a glint of what you can ony describe as anger in his eyes. Anger at the cruelty of death, perhaps, for having taken one so well loved, so caring, at what many might consider to be well before her time?
He approaches your mothers form, then turns to approach the podium. He seems intent on giving a eulogy, yet it is not time. Still, he announces his presence to the whole of the people assembled at the small town funeral home, with a loud and actually somewhat arrogant sounding harrumph. He addresses everyone as lades and gentlemen, and then he intorduces himself., His name, he says, is the Reverend Fred Phelps. That’s odd, you think. Has he for some reason had to replace your pastor at your mothers service. But why? Soon, as he speaks, his intent becomes all too clear.
“This woman”,He says. “Was nothing but a low down,no account whore. This slut, whom you people are pretending was the salt of the earth, was one the biggest bitches in this town. Was her entire life. Any man could have her, and by god, just about any man did. All her children are bastards, conceived in sinful adultery. This is the kind of woman, and these are the kinds of children, who are going to bring the judgment of God down upon
“Rejoice and repent!”, he concludes as he waves his arms and, outside the funeral home. you hear a chorus of people. Looking out the window in stupefied shock, you see men, women, and children, carrying signs, some with your mothers name followed by words like “slut”, “whore”, “bitch”, and others with an admonishment to turn from such sins, and declarng Gods curse on
Soon the whole congregation joins you in an expression of outrage, combined with shock and grief at the audacity, the cruel, cold heartedness of this action.
I guess you’ve figured out by now this is my way of saying I am all in favor of the law passed to limit protests at military funerals to within a certain spot and to an hour before and after the service. As far as I’m concerned, it’s the exact same scenario. The fact that one of the funerals is conducted with military honors is to me an incidental irrelevance. Such actions would still be intruding on a families private grief, and should not be allowed in either case.
Besides, this isn't about freedom of speech. There are privacy issues involved here. Their may, however, be one aspect of our constitutional rights that may be pertinent here. The real issue here, in this case, is freedom of association. And if any family decides, in the throes of their very real and very painful private grief, that they do not want to be associated with the likes of Fred Phelps, for good or for ill-including the right to not have him in their presence in a threatening, harrassing manner- then so be it. Their wishes should be honored.
