"Repugnant, outrageous, despicable, do not adequately describe what I feel they do to these families," said Representative Steve Buyer, an Indiana Republican who is a co-sponsor of a Congressional bill to regulate demonstrations at federal cemeteries. "They have a right to freedom of speech. But someone also has a right to bury a loved one in peace."
In the past few months, nine states, including Oklahoma, Wisconsin and Indiana, have approved laws that restrict demonstrations at a funeral or burial. In addition, 23 state legislatures are getting ready to vote on similar bills, and Congress, which has received thousands of e-mail messages on the issue, expects to take up legislation in May dealing with demonstrations at federal cemeteries.
As repugnant is their message is, it is classic political speech. No matter what one's position on the War in Iraq, every war death is a tragedy that should not be celebrated simply because the United States "attempts" to tolerate a sex life different from their own. Tolerance is not in their vocabulary.
"Thank God for Dead Soldiers," read one of their placards. "Thank God for I.E.D.'s," read another, a reference to the bombs used to kill service members in the war. To drive home their point -- that God is killing soldiers to punish America for condoning homosexuality -- members of the Westboro Baptist Church of Topeka, Kan., a tiny fundamentalist splinter group, kicked around an American flag and shouted, if someone approached, that the dead soldiers were rotting in hell.
If anybody can act, only a state can act, and, even then, there are serious First Amendment implications in limiting political speech. A second year law student can easily formulate arguments on both sides of the issue, but Congress? Where is the federal interest in limiting speech outside a private funeral that occurs once, not recurring daily, vis-a-vis a burial at Arlington National Cemetary?
Carpe diem, Congress. You abdicated your role in the War in Iraq and American tax policy, so think of something else to deflect the voters from the fact that Congress's disapproval rating is worse than President Bush's abysmal disapproval rating.
