Well, here's the counter-argument, and it's a biggie:
The Westboro Baptists weirdos want to set this hateful thing up in Casper, Wyoming. They want to exploit the brutal death of a gay boy to further their message of hate and doom. They want to glorify an act of shameful murder, basically. Because in their eyes, that's what the Old Testament was all about. After all, they don't mind picketing the funerals of gays, despite the feelings of those people's families. And they even protest the funerals of US servicemembers, because (they say) they died serving a sinful country that allows "fags" to live.
I don't blog about Westboro Baptist. I think they are too easy. They are basically one dysfunctional family, bound by the cult of personality of the pater familias Fred Phelps, who may or may not have been a wife-beating child-abusing sack of crap, but undoubtedly has some very specific and deeply defended ideas (delusions?) about religion. He encouraged his kindred to get law degrees so they could be bigger pests than the average primate. In short--they are fringe. Attacking Westboro Baptist is not the same as having a moral qualm about Sharia justice or a concern about Catholic politics as relates to infallibity and whether the Pope can screw up (like over that Holocaust-denying guy.) To fight with the latter means you need to understand the culture and make a good argument.
To despise the Phelpses only seems to require a functioning conscience. They are demogogues with a one-track, hateful, self-promoting, insular, cultish mind. They hate fags--their God hates fags. They say they saw it in the Old Testament, yet I never did hear tell of them protesting Red Lobster, but the Old Testament was down on shellfish too.
But their proposed monument is really just sick, and therefore, an example of how religious speech can be horribly wrong. Celebrating murder? Please.
To quote the relevant article:
That means a city cannot endorse monuments for the purpose of establishing a religion, Luben said.
Casper played an interesting role in the decision, Luben said. The city placed a Ten Commandments statue, also donated by the Fraternal Order of the Eagles, in the local Monument Plaza along with other statues of historical significance including the Magna Carta, Bill of Rights and Declaration of Independence.
Rev. Fred Phelps, the Westboro (Kan.) Baptist Church pastor who condemns homosexuality, argued that the Ten Commandments statue is a religious monument, which means the city should have allowed him to place his religious monument in the plaza as well.
The statue he demanded be erected stated: "Matthew Shepard Entered Hell October 12, 1998, in Defiance of God's Warning 'thou shalt not lie with mankind as with womankind; it is abomination.' Leviticus 18:22."
Shepard, a gay University of Wyoming student from Casper, was murdered 10 years ago and became a focus of Phelps' preaching.
I still don't entirely get where the Ten Commandments is not a religious monument, contra-Alito (who maintains that it can be represented in a "non-religious context--so fine, in a non-religious context, the Phelps mmonument is a political statement about the historical nature of anti-gay bigotry in the US--it still appears some religious speech is being protected on the basis of preference). On allowing the Decalogy to remain, they've left open Phelps' contention that the allowing of one religious monument should give creedence to allowing others, so long as the government finds that speech acceptable, and sometimes, even if it didn't happen here, that speech may be found offensive to some. My argument isn't about being PC--on the contrary, it's about government remaining silent on certain topics. People can chose to speak as they will on religion. Government should refrain.
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