Going to the Wall for the Westboro Inbreds

I was first introduced to the hate spewed by the inbreds of the Westboro Baptist Church and their patriarch Fred Phelps while living in Kansas City.  They had decided to hold a good old fashion book burning of Heather Has Two Mommies on the Plaza in Kansas City.  Up until then, I thought that book burnings were just the work of fascist regimes, were part our darkest past or a scene in the movie Footloose.  I was stunned.  I just couldn't think of why any person would want to burn a book, no matter how much you hated the message.

Over the years I have followed the WBC in the news as they perform their despicable acts of protesting funerals of murdered gays and fallen soldiers.  I have seen and read their hate.  I have wondered how anyone could have that much hate in their hearts.  I have tried to figure out how their vision of God could be so different from mine.  The one thing I have ever thought was that the government should silence them.

"But PJ," you are thinking, "How can you defend them?"  I don't defend them.  I defend their right to spew their hate and their non-sense that America is in distress because we gays are not sent to concentration camps or executed on sight.  Its not an enlightened position by any means.  I hate the WBC and everything they stand for.  I think they are the lowest form of life.  They prey on the deepest, darkest emotions in the hopes that others will openly hold their views.  And let's be honest, they are not the only organization that thinks that God hates gays.

My position is pragmatic.  If I don't stand at the wall with the WBC to defend their rights to free speech, unencumbered by the tyranny of the majority, then who will stand at the wall with me when the majority comes after me for what I say and write?  I know what Justice Samuel Alito won't:

"Our profound national commitment to free and open debate is not a license for the vicious verbal assault that occurred in this case."

We all know that the Brent Bozells of the world will stop at nothing to stifle speech that doesn't meet their standards.  Will you help defend free speech from the tyranny of the majority?  Will you stand at the wall with me?