This made me sick

[Steve]

http://www.cnn.com/2007/US/10/31/funeral.protest/index.html

This made me absolutely sick to my stomach


The hatred shown by these fanatics is sickening.  The man lost his son.  To say that he died because God is “punishing” America for tolerance of homosexuality is the most morally “evil” thing I have ever heard. 

I started reading Richard Dawkins’ book The God Delusion yesterday.  Everything that Dawkins says in the first 2 chapters is right here.  The son of a bitch who runs this church even is quoted saying in this article that he doesn’t expect to pay a cent of the settlement money, because he is “expressing his religion”.  The first amendment rights in the USA guarantee freedom of speech as long as it does not engender hate.  However it is fine to preach that hatred under the mantle of freedom of religion.

I do not have any respect for these people and I WILL speak out against them.  Contriving that “God hates fags” as one of their signs preached is completely morally disgusting.  To protest at someone’s funeral is just so wrong, I want to fly down to Maryland to get involved in this.  It sickens me to the extreme.

-S-

[X]

You are most definately not alone.

And there are the Patriot Guard Riders, whose existence is largely in respone to the Phelps' poison.

And I'm amazed that this cult thinks it's going to be able to overturn the ruling in "5 minutes".

[Brennan]

I'm familiar with the Westboro Bapist Church - which by the way consists primarily of one family.  They were recently fined 2.9 million dollars for their protest of a military funeral.

http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/N31342251.htm

[Mhaddaka]

I think my feelings on this topic are mixed.

The acts of the church protests are ridiculous, but, the reaction of the father seems almost misplaced.

I watched the video clip attached to the article, and more than once, the fathers responses made me think that he is more angry about the church's attack on the american military, and not that they interrupted his son's funeral.

He no doubt has strong feelings about that as well, but, he definately made a more important statement about how unfair the chuch is being in blaming the military.

Which, really has nothing to do with anything. Those protesters dont seem to be picking on anyone at all, but grabbing at any opportunity that presents itself to get their point across.

So, my question is, what exactly is his lawsuit fighting for?
Is it expressing an outrage towards the behaviour of the church, or, is it simply one religion at odds with another?