After tires slashed, Oklahoma townsfolk refuse to help 'God Hates Fags' protesters

reply to post by sligtlyskeptical


The problem with that, is who is to decide which types of free speech are okay and which kinds aren't? The best thing is that we keeo government out of it, they already have far too many powers, we surely don't need to give them more, as they abuse just about every power they have. Free speech should not be taken away from someone just because we don't agree with what they are speaking, otherwise it isn't free speech.

If you don't want a particular group of people at or around your funeral, you should make plans to be burried away from public property where people are and should be free to assemble.

It's an awfully dangerous idea to allow government to decide who should and who shouldn't have free speech, or what types of speech should be allowed. Free speech is just that, "free speech", and that means that people should be able to say or do anything they want, so long as they aren't initiating force against anyone.

I don't agree with this church or their message, though I do agree with their right to speak freely and assemble. Believe it or not, the soldiers they are protesting, fought and died to protect that right for them. In an odd and weird way, their deaths would have been in vain if free speech was hampered because of people assembling at their funerals. In another odd and weird way, it's the beauty of America that this kind of thing can happen, protesting the people giving you the right to protest.




--airspoon

Originally posted by crash override
is it just me that sees the irony of people who protest soldiers funerals and they're the ones that died so those ignorant idiots can protest!! isnt it say something in the bible about turning the other cheek?? or something about judging other people or you would be judged by god?? i'm not religious person so i could be wrong?

Lets keep it intellectually honest here.

No one died in Iraq or Afghanistan defending our right to protest. If the military really wanted to fight to protect our rights, they would storm Washington DC and detain every politician there.

A couple points I'd like to make regarding some statements made in this thread. (Great thread, btw, airspoon!)

Originally posted by airspoon
I don't believe that the god of Christians or Jews ever called homosexuality an obomination. If I can remember right, the issue is one of interpretation and possibly translation, though I don't think the bible or torah explicitly codemned homosexual acts.

"obomination"? Was that a Freudian slip?

Anyway... You are right. There is a question of whether the original bible condemned homosexuality at all. According to a word-for-word translation of the original Hebrew, it condemned a man sleeping with another man in a woman's bed, for some strange, archaic reason. It's as silly as the other 'rules' in Leviticus about owning slaves, eating shellfish or planting crops.

Translation and Interpretation of Leviticus 18:22

And with a male thou shalt not lie down in beds of a woman; it is an abomination. That is, "... rather than forbidding male homosexuality, it simply restricts where it may occur." This may seem a strange prohibition to us today, but was quite consistent with other laws in Leviticus which involve improper mixing of things that should be kept separate. e.g. ancient Hebrews were not allowed to mix two crops in the same field, or make cloth out of two different raw materials, or plow a field with an ox and a donkey yoked together. A woman's bed was her own. Only her husband was permitted there, and then only under certain circumstances. Any other use of her bed would be a defilement.

An aside: My dad used the ox and donkey yoked together prohibition as the basis for me not dating a person outside my race. Yeah, Dad, I'm a donkey. I get it now...

Secondly,

Originally posted by sligtlyskeptical
No one should be allowed to protest at funerals, period. These people should have been jailed.

That would require the government to be involved to prevent people from getting their feelings hurt and getting offended. Do you really want the government protecting our feelings??? I do NOT! I want less government, NOT more! The people have power that they're not using! Why call for the government like a baby and say, "Help me! Make these people stop hurting my feelings"! when we have power we're not using? We have the power to peacefully and legally make the WBC protests miserable by using OUR rights.

Unfortunately, when people don't like something these days, they have been programmed to call for the government, "Make it stop! I don't like it"! We have to get OUT of that mode.

I am all for free speech. That said, the right of free speech requires responsibility. Use it irresponsibly and it should be taken away from that person or group. It is really pretty simple.

Pretty simple??? You're saying the government should be brought in to "take away the right of the people". The government should take away the Constitutionally-protected right of the people??? WTF?

You can't say you are all for free speech and then turn around and say that someone should be jailed for exercising it! And who decides what is "responsible" use of the First Amendment? You? Everyone who thinks in those terms says that. "I am all for free speech, BUT... "

Bah!

People need to realize that the true test of support of the Constitution and free speech means that you support it for EVERYONE, even those with whom you vehemently disagree. It's EASY to support it for people who say nice things. But if you don't support it for spitwads like Phelps, you don't support it at all and you should STOP saying that you do!

reply to post by getreadyalready


Someone should invite those slugs to protest at a funeral in Antlers , Oklahoma , down in Pushmataha county .
Anyone familiar with Antlers will know exactly what I am talking about . You can check out any time you like , but you can never leave .

Yeah let put up signs in our shops of what kind of people we do serve and what kind of people we don't serve, that would make it a better place.

reply to post by airspoon

If you don't want a particular group of people at or around your funeral, you should make plans to be burried away from public property where people are and should be free to assemble.

I don't understand this type of reasoning . EVERYONE should have the right to bury their dead in a public cemetery without having to deal with this type of nonsense from some lunatic fringe group of religious zealots . NOBODY should be forced to "make plans to be buried away from public property ... " simply to avoid this type of ridiculous BULLSH*T .

Would you feel the same way , if these idiots showed up at your favorite restaurant to protest the consumption of pork , every time you dined there ?

And , to all you other "free speech" advocates , would you feel the same way if it was the Ku Klux Klan or Aryan Nations who were protesting at these funerals ?

Hell no , you guys would be screaming about what a bunch of idiots they are and how something should be done to prohibit them from doing so .

Protesting at ANYONE's funeral is the ultimate show of disrespect . This is every bit as despicable as those who spat on servicemen/women returning from Nam .

You guys are entitled to your opinion but , I will be going to jail for assault and battery if and when I ever encounter this on a personal level .

Originally posted by okbmd
And , to all you other "free speech" advocates , would you feel the same way if it was the Ku Klux Klan or Aryan Nations who were protesting at these funerals ?

YES! Free Speech isn't just for SOME, it's for Everyone.

Hell no , you guys would be screaming about what a bunch of idiots they are and how something should be done to prohibit them from doing so .

I would not! I'm a STRONG advocate of equal rights for gay people! If I were going to deny Free Speech to anyone it would be Phelps and his merry gang of misfits, but I truly, honestly support the rights of the people.

Protesting at ANYONE's funeral is the ultimate show of disrespect . This is every bit as despicable as those who spat on servicemen/women returning from Nam .

Yes, it's disrespectful! It's offensive and mean. But do you want the government making a law that you can't disrespect other people???

Why does no one ever answer that?

As much as I dislike what they do, I dislike whoever slashed their tires even more and I hope they are caught and punished.

Originally posted by okbmd
reply to post by getreadyalready

 

Someone should invite those slugs to protest at a funeral in Antlers , Oklahoma , down in Pushmataha county .
Anyone familiar with Antlers will know exactly what I am talking about . You can check out any time you like , but you can never leave .

I have never been there, I will have to check it out some time. I used to spend the majority of my time around Picher, OK, but last I heard a tornado wiped that town out and they didn't rebuild it. It sat on a EPA Superfund Site, so I guess the tornado saved them the money of tearing it down and relocating everyone.

I was once at a bar in NYC, and I mentioned Picher, OK, and another guy at the bar recognized the name and said he had heard through some biker bars that Picher was one of the toughest places in the country! He was probably right, but those nightly bar brawls just seemed normal to me at the time, I thought the whole country lived that way. When I moved to Florida I used to joke with my buddies back home that it was almost impossible to start a fight down here! You can spill a drink, grab some ass, and bump someone off their barstool, and you will just get some laughs and somebody will buy you a beer?

"Rascall Flats" (the country group) is named after a big azz chat pile (gravel pile) in Picher, OK.

Anyhow, I have been appalled that this church group was associated with the Midwest in any way, so I hope we start to see more "unwelcomeness" from them. They came to Thomasville, GA a couple of weeks ago, but I didn't get to go with the Patriot Guard to block their access. I really, really wanted to, but I was travelling the opposite direction that week. I would love to see a lot of "accidents" happen to that van and that group!

Originally posted by okbmd
And , to all you other "free speech" advocates , would you feel the same way if it was the Ku Klux Klan or Aryan Nations who were protesting at these funerals ?

Aryan Nations? I find this funny considering how much everyone's prompt defense of their troops and regarding them as "heroes" can only be related to the population's mental state and support for their military in mid-century Germany. "Take away our rights to protect the dead soldiers who didn't fight for anyone's rights and freedoms, but rather condemned them to make a profit for large corporations and government bodies and spread global fear! Our heroes!!!"

Hell no , you guys would be screaming about what a bunch of idiots they are and how something should be done to prohibit them from doing so .

No, I would use my own words to argue against them like an adult and not go crying to the government. If you tell the government you need them to control your enemies, your enemies will use them to control you, too. If you don't like it, do something about it yourself; you're a big boy and a lot of people agree that these protests are disrespectful. Solution: do something about it that doesn't involve labeling it and crying to the top of the hierarchy about it.

Protesting at ANYONE's funeral is the ultimate show of disrespect. This is every bit as despicable as those who spat on servicemen/women returning from Nam .

Disrespectful? Yes. Without reason? That's your opinion, and you can find your own outlet to express that. Welcome to the country. Remember that respect is a two way street and these people believe that the reason that America has so many terrorist threats is because the American Military is trampling all over the Middle East (and, even though I am gay and WBC is a slimy institution full of presumptive, ignorant, shallow tards, I can acknowledge that this particular assumption is not far from the truth, especially considering all of the insane veiws I've been hearing from Americans lately concerning NWO). And, just like mid-century Germany, instead of getting flak from the people about it, all those involved are brought home and regarded as "heroes that died for our freedoms and the flag and our country and rights and the Constitution .... and flags, and this country and freedom....", when more realistically they are "Average Joes with families who died for corporate interest to procure a standard paycheck, because political and corporate interest sucked all of the money away from the people and forced them to join the military because they are incapable of finding a job that isn't a sales clerk at the Umbrella Corpo... I mean WalMart (Capitalism's lovechild with Slavery) or the FDA (Capitalism's lovechild with Murder).". To regard today's American Military as that of the past is disrespectful for those who fought for worthy causes -- for peace and equality. Today's American Military is just another publicly owned corporation, concerned only with turning a profit for larger corporations by use of guns and fury so that a percentage of this greed can be extracted and used to buy more guns and more war machines and invade more countries so that the company can grow, grow, grow.

The more and more these threads surface, the more I realize how far military propaganda can go by do all the thinking for the people in times of war and fear.

reply to post by Benevolent Heretic

Yes, it's disrespectful! It's offensive and mean. But do you want the government making a law that you can't disrespect other people???

Why does no one ever answer that?

I'll answer it. I do not want another law on the books for any reason. I also do not want the government meddling in the affairs of local people and local customs.

Therefore, what I do want is the right to slap the hell out of someone disrespecting a dead soldier. When the local sheriff comes to investigate, and he hears both sides of the story, I want him to advise the protestors that the slap seems justified according to local customs, and if they don't want more of the same, they should probably relocate!

I know, I know, physical violence for using the right of free speech is wrong. I disagree. "Real" consequences are "physical" consequences. If you blatantly disrespect someone, then you get a real consequence. They are "free" to say whatever they like in their own circles, but when they intentionally put it in someone's face and try to elicit a response, then that response should not get a punishment.

So, government stay out of the whole affair, let the speak, and let the locals respond, and let the chips fall where they may.

Originally posted by Brood
Today's American Military is just another publicly owned corporation, concerned only with turning a profit for larger corporations by use of guns and fury so that a percentage of this greed can be extracted and used to buy more guns and more war machines and invade more countries so that the company can grow, grow, grow.

Oh, man! I got chills reading your post! It is so right on!

I understand how some people feel offended at Reverend Phelps and his peanut warriors, but we have to realize that those poor kids who are dying are NOT dying for a worthy cause. Sadly, they are dying for money and the sooner we realize that they are NOT fighting for our freedoms, the sooner we can break away from the nationalism that is a sickness in our country.

Originally posted by getreadyalready
I know, I know, physical violence for using the right of free speech is wrong. I disagree. "Real" consequences are "physical" consequences.

Well, thanks for answering.

But if you want the right to hit someone because they exercise a Constitutionally-protected right, I guess I'm just glad you don't make the rules.

I don't know where people get the idea that it's OK to get violent when someone says something. Sticks and stones, ya know?

reply to post by Benevolent Heretic


Ya, I know. I've heard a lot of adages, like "violence is the last resort of a weak mind," etc. etc.

And I already stated, that I realize that the first one to resort to violence is typically the bad guy.

BUT, nature has "natural" consequences. If I yell at a bear or disrespect his peaceful environment, there is a natural consequence. Consider me a walking and talking bear with a high intellect that I choose to use sparingly.

Hypothetically, If given the choice between slapping some idiot yelling at my buddies funeral, or composing a very articulate and stinging verbal assault, I will choose the slap. It is more quick, concise, effective, and direct. It makes me feel better faster, and it will last in their memory a little longer. Next time they think about yelling at my buddy's funeral, they will also think about the slap and hopefully reconsider.

I know my view is politically incorrect, rooted in emotion, and I am admittedly comparing myself to a woodland creature instead of an evolved species, but I am ok with all of that.

Originally posted by getreadyalready

And I already stated, that I realize that the first one to resort to violence is typically the bad guy.

BUT, nature has "natural" consequences. If I yell at a bear or disrespect his peaceful environment, there is a natural consequence. Consider me a walking and talking bear with a high intellect that I choose to use sparingly.

I think this "bear" just needs a hug before he becomes a violent offender.

All "bears" usually just need a hug.

...(No gay pun intended)