Tuesday, June 7, 2011

Visions Of America

On Memorial Day this year folks from Westboro Baptist Church in Kansas, fresh on the heels of the Supreme Court decision upholding their right to spew homophobic hatred at the funerals of U.S. troops killed in our various wars, staged a protest at Arlington National Cemetery. Their message was the same as always: God is pleased that our young people are being killed and maimed in war because of our nation's "tolerance" of homosexuals, whom God despises. The interesting thing about this particular celebration of ignorance was that a counter-protest occurred. The people on the other side of the barriers were members of the Ku Klux Klan. Vitriol was being batted back and forth like a shuttlecock in a ferocious badminton match.

One of the members of the Phelps family, which comprises most of the membership of the Westboro Baptist Church, noted the presence of the KKK and ironically sniffed, “That’s fine. They have no moral authority on anything."

Apart from the funny outfits -- the KKK's pointy-hooded white robes and the American flag worn as a skirt by one of the women from the church to complement her "Jews Killed Jesus.com" t-shirt -- both sides displayed a vision of our nation as one that excludes, denigrates, and threatens fellow citizens different from themselves.

I guess they love freedom and the right to openly speak their minds, as do we all. However, they are unique in that they know God's will. They understand the intent of the framers of the Constitution.

For everyone else -- well, we'll learn the hard way, I suppose. Now, if that church and the KKK only could agree on the truth...

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