OLEAN -- The older I get, the harder I find it to hew to lifelong beliefs.
I've always been pretty much a purist when it comes to freedom of speech. Now I'm wavering a bit.
We all recognize the venerable argument about the wisdom of the Founding Fathers and the First Amendment and the strengths of a just nation: Let anyone state or write a belief -- no matter how wild or improbable -- and then we'll argue over its worth. If the words have merit, they will stand on their own.
But now, a publicity-seeking Kansan -- a man of the cloth, yet -- has me doubting all that.
The Rev. Fred Phelps, pastor of the tiny Westboro Baptist Church in Topeka, has been sending out some of his 70 or so congregants (many of them his children and in-laws, which make up a substantial portion of his flock) to attend military funerals. They do this not out of stated patriotism, nor political leanings, but to advance the somewhat wobbly notion that American youths are dying in Iraq because God hates homosexuals. That's right, read it again.
Phelps -- a Mississippi native now in his late 70s -- and his church have been subjected to an avalanche of print, TV and Internet publicity in recent days because a half dozen or so of his advocates will show up at various military funerals in this or that state, mocking the corpse and insulting the relatives by their presence. Some display stick figures apparently engaged in "deviant" acts, and carry signs stating, among other things, "God Hates Faggots," "Thank God for Dead Soldiers," "God Hates You," and "God Loves IEDs."
This last is a reference to Improvised Explosive Devices, the homemade roadside bombs Iraqi insurgents are fond of that have caused many of the deaths in the Bush administration's misbegotten adventure in the Middle East. Shirley Phelps-Roper, the pastor's daughter and Westboro Baptist's attorney, calls IEDs "God's weapon of choice."
There is no claim made that the individual deceased soldier is a homosexual -- gay or lesbian. The Westboro claim is that God is so angry at America for its tolerance of homosexuality that he is visiting wrath upon our troops.
Sometimes the protesters sing or chant "God Hates America" to the tune of "God Bless America," and the Westboro demonstrators have been observed trampling American flags tied to their ankles -- yet another insult to military families and their mourned offspring.
These are not peaceniks. The Westboro protesters claim no opposition to our presence in Iraq, nor to killing civilians, nor to torturing prisoners, nor to war in general. They say they believe these deaths occur because God is punishing the United States for coddling homosexuals.
As explained on the church's Web site, the deceased soldiers died from wounds inflicted directly by God's will because he or she "volunteered to serve a nation that hates God. ... What more evidence do you need to tell you he's in Hell?"
Phelps-Roper told popular syndicated columnist Mitch Albom last week the position of her father's church "is that this nation has sinned away her day of grace ... the wrath of God is pouring out on this nation. ... You turn this country over to the fags, now your children are coming home in body bags."
This idea that God personally reveals himself and his motives to human ministers of religion has always struck me as somewhat peculiar, but it is not uncommon. Fanatics, fulminators and fantasists are always telling us what God is thinking about some aspect of modern life -- claims that actually strike me as destructively prideful and probably just as sinful as any to do with sex. The Westboro philosophy raises a theological question: Does one have to hate homosexuals in order to love God?
I do not presume to know what God thinks about homosexuals, but if I had to guess I'd go with the numerous scriptural observations that God is above all a loving entity, and loves his numerous creations. Even if this proves untrue, I have trouble accepting this Kansan spouter's philosophy that God is smiting young Americans, whose sexual leanings admittedly don't come into play, just because he's cheesed off at our national level of tolerance for sexual choice. There's a cognitive disconnect in there the size and intensity of a flashing neon sign.
This war in Iraq is more about crude oil than it is about sexual choice. It would be more productive for American society if Phelps and his followers showed up beefing about our addictive reliance on petroleum and the mess it's driven us into. OK, so what's all this got to do with my case of nerves over freedom of speech?
Just this. About 15 states -- in response to the Westboro Baptist lunacy -- are fashioning legislation that would block protests during military funeral services. Legislatures in Indiana, Kansas, Oklahoma, South Dakota and Kentucky have already passed such proposals. Republican Congressman Mike Rogers of Michigan and Democratic Sen. Evan Bayh of Indiana are preparing federal legislation that would do the same. Congressional committee hearings are already scheduled for early April, even though the House and Senate bills aren't officially filed yet. That's the level of interest on Capitol Hill.
But isn't the protection of free speech pretty much absolute in this country? I know, I know -- Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes said it doesn't extend to yelling "Fire" in a crowded theater, but haven't the courts ruled neo-Nazis can march in Jewish neighborhoods, and that other hate groups freely spread their filth and narrow views throughout the land? Do we really want to start restricting any views, no matter how wacky or insulting?
Those questions have me torn and worried. House member Rogers notes "there's a difference between free speech and hateful, harassing speech."
Phelps-Roper, the Kansas rev's lawyer-daughter, claims the Westboro crowd is exercising "exactly what the framers of the Constitution had in mind" with the First Amendment. And if these new "funeral protest laws" ever get to the Supreme Court -- as they likely will -- her view may be upheld.
Right now, however, if I'm in Congress, I vote for the Rogers-Bayh legislation.
Let the grieving parents be. The Westboro Baptists can protest somewhere else. They're lucky, given the emotions at stake and their behavior, that they haven't been hospitalized already.
Increasingly, the funerals targeted by the Phelpsian anti-gay protests have been drawing large numbers of Patriot Guard Riders, a national organization of motorcycle enthusiasts that includes many combat veterans, who roll to these services with flags and military insignia flying and form a protective shield around the appreciative family mourners, calmly blocking any protests or interruptions.
They are often joined by former members of the Armed Forces from the Marine League, the Veterans of Foreign Wars, the Knights of Columbus, Vietnam Veterans of America and other organizations. They form human barriers between the true mourners and the handful of Westboro haters. Often, the cyclists and veterans hold aloft huge tarpaulins in front of the Kansans -- stifling their shouts and robbing their view.
I haven't meant to insult Baptists in general in this piece, and therefore should clarify a few things about the "Reverend" Fred Phelps and the "church" he founded about a half century ago.
Topekans know him well. Westboro Baptist is monitored as a hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center and the Anti-Defamation League. This "church" Phelps founded is not affiliated with any commonly recognized larger Baptist denominations, synods or councils. As mentioned, many of his followers are in-laws, blood relatives, or among his 13 children -- 11 of whom are lawyers.
Indeed, the Rev. Phelps himself is a disbarred attorney. He was prohibited from practicing in Kansas in 1979 when the Kansas Supreme Court held he had "little regard for the ethics of his profession" and that he'd held a defendant in a case up to "unnecessary public ridicule for which there is no basis in fact." He continued to practice in federal courts, however, until 1985, when no fewer than nine federal court judges filed disciplinary complaints against him, charging him -- and six family members, all lawyers -- with making false accusations against them. Four years later, Fred Phelps agreed to surrender his license to practice law in return for allowance by the complaining judges to continue letting his family members practice in federal court.
It was about this time that Westboro Baptist began demonstrating against homosexuals and that Phelps discovered the Internet, which he has stated "God invented ... for us to preach on." Soon, he had a Web site going that was domained as Godhatesfags.com.
In 1993, his church's picketing of an AIDS victim's funeral moved Kansas City, Missouri, city fathers to pass a municipal funeral picketing law of their own.
In the '60s and '70s, Phelps became known in Topeka for filing suits by the score against almost anybody. According to the Southern Poverty Law Center, he eventually filed at least 400 lawsuits, most of them in federal court, claiming all sorts of wrongs had been done him and his family. An SPLC "Intelligence Report" states that "estranged son Nathan Phelps" has claimed his father's strategy was "to file frivolous lawsuits in the hope that his targets will settle to avoid the costs of defense." Fred Phelps even sued his alma mater, Washburn University Law School, after three of his children were denied admission.
Interestingly, Phelps also filed several civil rights cases while he was still licensed, and won school district discrimination cases and settlements for blacks who were illegally searched by police at a party. In 1986 and 1987, he received three awards for his civil rights cases, including one from the NAACP.
He once sued President Ronald Reagan for sending an ambassador to the Vatican, claiming it violated the constitutional guarantee of freedom of religion.
Now, Phelps is receiving the national attention he seems to have so desired. He has a national issue vehicle that stands a good chance of fast-track deliberation by the Supreme Court.
He is 76 years old.
Perhaps, with his aforementioned presumptions, he already knows what God thinks of him.
Me, I'd be nervous.
| Niagara Falls Reporter | www.niagarafallsreporter.com | March 21 2006 |