(April 13, 2010 at 8:51 pm)chatpilot Wrote: I don't think a mans funeral is the appropriate place to spew that trash. Going to a soldiers funeral and saying things like god hates soldiers etc. is just wrong on so many levels. They could at least wait till the dad got home and camp out on his lawn or something, even that is wrong in my view. Personally, if someone I was mourning someone at a funeral and Fred Phelps and his gang made an appearance I would shove those signs up their holy asses.They were legally required to stand 1000 feet away, they contacted the police to make sure they weren't breaking any laws.
Freedom of speech should be protected as much as possible, and in my opinion it covers every aspect of hate speech. When you have governments deciding which views are "correct" and which views aren't, you find yourself on a slippery slope towards censorship. The same freedom that allows people to use hate speech is used by those who disagree to counter and argue back.
The UK government blocked the WBC from entering the UK last year, and I was appalled by it. We would be a better off nation if we could remove the shackles of "political correctness" and let people speak out.