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Originally Posted by harrybeanbag
I've always thought of the whole free speech thing in respect to these people - while I can't stand them or anything that they advocate and stand for, they do have a right to be assholes. As far as them actively picketing funerals and openly provoking families/gays - I don't know the law, and I'm not going to pretend to, but are they within their full legal right to do this?
If I remember correctly, Phelps is a lawyer, so it would make sense that he did his homework before putting himself and his lemmings in such a precarious situation. It doesn't make them any less horrible human beings, but I'm still curious as to how people think they should be treated with respect to free speech.
Bill Maher said something once about the tolerance of intolerance, and I'd have to throw in with his side on this issue. They're hateful fucks, plain and simple, and serve no purpose other than spreading their hate and tormenting innocent, suffering families in the name of their own twisted ideology. I'm not going to go so far as to say that they should be killed(because that's not my place, I'm not a murderer, and I'm not going to advocate death and lower myself to their level), but they should at least be held accountable in some capacity for their deeds.
As a culture, we gain nothing from these people aside from negative perceptions of America, aside from possibly the debate/discussion that inevitably crops up whenever they decide to stop screwing each other long enough to band together and retard their way to the funeral of another dead teenage soldier.
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Bah, I know they have the right to free speech and that by lashing out at them we would be going against everything right and true and sinking down to their level, but sometimes I really want to forget that I know that.
There doesn't seem to be any way to deal with these people though, we have no legal recourse, and you certainly can't argue with them, they have that built in defense system against everything and anything.
"Christianity has a built-in defense system: anything that questions a belief, no matter how logical the argument is, is the work of Satan by the very fact that it makes you question a belief. It's a very interesting defense mechanism and the only way to get by it -- and believe me, I was raised Southern Baptist -- is to take massive amounts of mushrooms, sit in a field, and just go, "Show me."
- Bill Hicks (That's my last quote in this thread I swear, he's just so topical!)
