Westboro Baptist Church is the unspeakably obnoxious group that protests at things like dead soldiers’ funerals (apparently more than 280 of them) and the funerals of college students. Their main gripe seems to be, of all things, homosexuality, and they hold signs saying things like “Thank God for IEDs.”
The disgusting behavior of these people is bad enough on its own merit. However, I was surprised to learn that the WBC requests in advance– and in most cases actually receives– police protection before all its protests. I can understand why the WBC members (who are all relatives of its founder, Fred Phelps) are scared of bodily harm, but I don’t personally see why the police should provide this type of service pre-emptively. I’m going to participate in a protest of my own tomorrow, but I don’t expect police protection, and I didn’t demand it beforehand just in case I might need it.
The fact that police officers in all these cities are protecting the scum of Westboro Baptist Church rather than conducting actual police activities (such as fighting and preventing actual crime, for a start) is also disgusting to me. Why would the local governments in these cities grant the WBC’s request?
If the WBC is so concerned for its own safety, it should have only two options: 1.) don’t conduct their ridiculous protests in the first place and stay home, or 2.) pay for their own private security. Imagine that! A group actually paying their own way rather than expecting everyone else in society to foot the bill for them. It’s rarer and rarer these days.
In my opinion, the cities which grant police protection to Westboro Baptist Church are subsidizing their despicable protests. Without the pre-emptive police protection, WBC would probably not protest at all. They might not find all that traveling so affordable anymore.
We don’t have to infringe free speech to stop these slime from protesting. Just stop giving them their own personal, taxpayer-supplied bodyguards.
I’d agree with you, except that equal protection requires that if the government supplies police to defend the free speech of other unpopular speakers (otherwise, the heckler’s veto wins), WBC shouldn’t be singled out for exceptions because of the content of their views.
Now, if somebody pours 400 grid carborundum into the oil of WBC’s passenger vans while they’re making asses of themselves at a funeral, I will snigger up my sleeve.
Engineer-Poet
March 19th, 2008
Do the police offer pre-emptive protection for other hate groups, though? If the KKK has a rally at someone’s house, do the police show up to protect them? The KKK has to have their events at people’s homes, because they just wouldn’t be able to gather on the streets and in public.
Anyone has the right to say whatever they want wherever they want, but they shouldn’t cost taxpayers money to say it.
As an example, I was in a protest march today and the police were there, but only because we were walking down the middle of a major downtown street and they roped it off for us. It wasn’t for anyone’s protection.
libertariangirl
March 19th, 2008
In oh-so-liberal Ann Arbor some years ago, the Nazis had police protection for their march. This was mostly the cops keeping a very irate mob away from them, IIRC.
What were you protesting, if I may ask?
Engineer-Poet
March 19th, 2008
The war.
libertariangirl
March 19th, 2008
Reminds me of something I got from a friend waaaay back when I was a kid:
Oh say oh hippie
Come out and smoke with me
And bring your LSD
And climb my marijuana tree
We’ll have a riot
And we’ll protest the war
And we’ll be drunken bums
Forever more!
(We had no idea that marijuana didn’t grow on trees. It was a more innocent time, I guess.)
Engineer-Poet
March 20th, 2008
The protesters back then were much better at what they did than the ones today.
Even college students are too busy to protest these days.
libertariangirl
March 22nd, 2008
Back then, the courts hadn’t gutted the First Amendment by allowing dissenters to be confined to “free speech” areas far from view either.
Engineer-Poet
March 22nd, 2008
Do you think that any argument can be made for restricting the rights of this group to protest at funerals? IF there’s a right to privacy in the Constitution that somehow provides for the ability to have an abortion, it seems there’s a right to privacy at a relative’s funeral.
(I don’t think a right to privacy is granted by the Constitution, although that’s a bit of a more natural right.)
libertariangirl
March 24th, 2008
If they can be heard inside the building where the funeral is being held, you could nail them for violating noise ordinances.
It is best to keep such things absolutely content-neutral, because any effort to crack down on Phelps in particular can and will be used to take away the rights of everyone else the very next day (and given recent history, “the next day” may be optimistic).
Engineer-Poet
March 24th, 2008
Of course any type of regulation in that matter must be content-neutral. If Phelps violates privacy, I would also argue that any type of protester or even supporter that appears with signs at a private funeral is violating privacy.
libertariangirl
April 2nd, 2008