Caring citizens will face Westboro hate-mongers

Set the stage: Sadly, we have veterans’ funerals in Wyoming. Sad enough just for that, but then self-appointed hatemongers from Kansas invite themselves into other people’s private tragedies.

Some days, I could believe in Hell, because who could not wish these twisted freaks from the Westboro Baptist Let’s Fund-Raise by Venal Corruption of Hate Agenda So-called Church in Kansas would burn forever? Fred Phelps. Let his name ring eternally in Hell. Except I don’t believe in Hell.

They keep coming back to Wyoming. Their poisonous spewing of vitriolic hate is comparable to the venomous Muslim terrorist analysis of divinity. American soldiers are killed by Muslim terrorists and their families are then terrorized by these wacko false-Bibliophile homophobic hatemongers at the funeral services of their lost family members at home. Why don’t these Westboro cowards get their asses over to Iran or Iraq to spread their non-Gospel?

Who would imagine The Sage Grouse opining on religion? Well, The Sage Grouse had a Biblical upbringing; having read the entire New Testament four times and the entire Old Testament twice before graduating from high school. The whole point of the New Testament is that the Old Testament theology of punishment and retribution is consigned to history. The New Testament is not punitive, it is not vindictive and it is not homophobic. Why should any Christian (or otherwise caring human being) interrupt a family’s tragic funeral to heap mockery and  pain upon their suffering, unless to reap self-aggrandizing fund-raising benefits from inflicting that suffering?

I don’t think I have yet found the terms. Depravity. Usurping. Yes, usurping. Dare some Bible-thumping pretend-illiterate cash-craving Kansas preacher-toad presume to pass God’s judgment upon anyone or anything?

A Wyoming soldier died recently and his funeral was in Sheridan in late January. The vulturine predacious Westboro scum announced their intentions to torture the family of the deceased. Then what happened?

A huge coalition of veterans and friends swarmed the streets outside the Holy Name Catholic Church to form an opaque flag-bearing barricade between the Westboro slimeballs and the funeral. The slimy cowardice creatures dispersed.

No violence or photo opportunities ensued.

There is a bill, House Bill 248, still circulating in the Wyoming Legislature, which would require these slime-cowards from Westboro to stay a certain distance away from churches where veterans’ funerals are conducted. “How about 500 miles?” I want to say. However, any such legislation is likely to be unconstitutional. I remember when the ACLU almost lost its funding base when it championed the rights of Nazi sympathizers to march through the Jewish neighborhoods of Skokie, Ill. Jackboots and swastikas in the face of death-camp survivors. Liberal Jewish ACLU supporters were aghast. But the ACLU felt that any erosion of Constitutional rights of peaceful assembly cannot be allowed.

The Constitution may require that the government cannot prohibit Fred Phelps from behaving like the cowardly, bombastic venom-spewer which he is, but it does not prohibit citizens from showing up to block the view of his self-promoting behavior.

So, fellow citizens, do not expect the legislature to solve this problem. Like the motivated vets and supporters who showed up in force in Sheridan, let’s rely on each other to shine a bright light upon the reptilian Kansas hatemongers and shame them back into the vile darkness from which they were spawned. This means that the next time this happens and someone calls me, I must answer.