Washington (CNN) -- Missouri's tight restrictions on protests and picketing outside military funerals were tossed out by a federal judge Monday, over free speech concerns.
A small Kansas church had brought suit over its claimed right to loudly march outside the burials and memorial services of those killed in overseas conflicts. The state legislature had passed a law to keep members of the Topeka-based Westboro Baptist Church from demonstrating within 300 feet of such private services.
But that doesn't mean that other "Extremists" are going to take this lying down...
While both Democratic leaders (Harry Reid) and Republicans (Pat Buchannan vs Newt Gingrich's Hate Speech) are turning themselves into pretzels of the Mosque that's not a Mosque, in the area that's not Ground Zero - we've been having a set of Bigoted Christian Supremacists running around the country and protesting at the funerals of our troops in order to express their opinion of God's "Diapproval" of Teh Ghey.
It's literally like Leviticus vs John.
Religious Literalists from Westboro want to take the "Abomination of a man lying with a man" to it's ultimate conclusion - but I have this question for them, what about the "abomination" of children talking back to their elders?
Do they deserve to be put to death?
What about the Bible's support for Slavery? What about the prohibition from planting different crops in the same field or wearing cloth of two different types?
What about the fact that Moses under Levitican law allowed people to become divorced, but Jesus overrode him in Matthew 19:
6 Wherefore they are no more twain, but one flesh. What therefore God hath joined together, let not man put asunder.
7 They say unto him, Why did Moses then command to give a writing of divorcement, and to put her away?
8 He saith unto them, Moses because of the hardness of your hearts suffered you to put away your wives: but from the beginning it was not so.
9 And I say unto you, Whosoever shall put away his wife, except it be for fornication, and shall marry another, committeth adultery: and whoso marrieth her which is put away doth commit adultery.
Jesus argued that Marriage - under God - is for life and that anyone who tried to divorce and marry another, was committing adultery. So should they be put to death, harrassed, shamed? No. Not according to John 8:
3 And the scribes and Pharisees brought unto him a woman taken in adultery; and when they had set her in the midst,
4 They say unto him, Master, this woman was taken in adultery, in the very act.
5 Now Moses in the law commanded us, that such should be stoned: but what sayest thou?
6 This they said, tempting him, that they might have to accuse him. But Jesus stooped down, and with his finger wrote on the ground, as though he heard them not.
7 So when they continued asking him, he lifted up himself, and said unto them, He that is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone at her.
8 And again he stooped down, and wrote on the ground.
9 And they which heard it, being convicted by their own conscience, went out one by one, beginning at the eldest, even unto the last: and Jesus was left alone, and the woman standing in the midst.
10 When Jesus had lifted up himself, and saw none but the woman, he said unto her, Woman, where are those thine accusers? hath no man condemned thee?
11 She said, No man, Lord. And Jesus said unto her, Neither do I condemn thee: go, and sin no more.
The Phelps and Westboro Baptist Church do have a "Right" to protest for their version of the Bible, just as much as others have a right to argue that they've gotten it completely wrong, that Jesus repeatedly overrode and updated Moses Levitican laws. They're like Constitutional Originalists who refuse to acknowledge the 13th Amendment or 14th Amendment.
Or people who say that those Co-exist stickers are "Giving our Country Away".
Florida House Tea Party Candidate Alan West:
– “We already have a 5th column that is already infiltrating into our colleges, into our universities, into our high schools, into our religious aspect, our cultural aspect, our financial, our political systems in this country. And that enemy represents something called Islam and Islam is a totalitarian theocratic political ideology, it is not a religion. It has not been a religion since 622 AD, and we need to have individuals that stand up and say that.”
To People who say that Islam isn't a Religion, would you say that to Muhammad Ali? Would you say it to Kareem Abdul-Jabbar? Islam has been a part of the fabric of America since it's founding, since the Treaty of Tripoli where President John Adams stated:
As the government of the United States of America is not in any sense founded on the Christian Religion - as it has in itself no character of enmity against the laws, religion or tranquility of Musselmen, - and as the said States never have entered into any war or act of hostility against any Mehomitan nation, it is declared by the parties that no pretext arrising from religious opinions shall ever produce an interruption of the harmony existing between the two countries.
Just as our Current President did say....
Obama: This is America, and our commitment to Religious Freedom must be unshakable.
And didn't walk back when he later said this...
Obama: My intention was to simply let people know what I thought... In this country we treat everyone equally, . I was not commenting, and I will not comment on the wisdom of making a decisions to put a mosque there, I was commenting very specifically on the right that people have that dates back to our founding. As difficult as some of these issues are, (we should) stay focused on who we are as a people and what our values are all about.
In both cases, the President was absolutely correct. Just as the Judge who approved the Westboro protests was correct. In this country we have the Right of Religious Freedom and Expression, the Right to Public Assembly and the Right to Petition our Government.
We have that Right even if what we have to say, and that which we worship is essentially vile and despicable to others. Westboro has that Right, but so does the Park 51 Community Complex.
Fortunately though, we also have the right - to protest the protesters. To call out their Hate and replace it with knowledge, understanding, compassion and outreach just as Jesus replaced the isolationist and openly xenophobic views of Moses, with Love, Forgiveness and Repentance.
It is so interesting to me that so many so called "Christians" don't seem to know the very first thing about Christ - or their own Country.
Vyan
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