Westboro Baptist Member Insulted My 11 Year Old Sister.

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Much as it pains me to say it, they have every right to say the things that they say, and I would not see them stopped.

Their message is hateful and hurtful, but it is precisely this type of message that challenges us to be tolerant. If free speech is to mean anything at all, it must be universal. The freedom they exercise is the same freedom that permits us to hold up a sign saying, "Gay is good."

I agree with you.

I won't even mention "broken clocks" either.

Why would they have a right to insult a kid, especially a kid that's not theirs?

He answered that. Read the rest of the post.

The same right that I have to tell that same child that they are wrong and hurtful people who should be pitied rather than argued with.

They're a troll church. Just about everyone hates them back anyway.

That's a good description.

Be that as it may, that man is a tyrannical, abusive piece of s**t.

This was on the Internet that this happened? In my opinion, your sister was in a forum or on a website where an 11 year old should not have been.

If that's how they make money then ignoring them is leaving their effort in vain. ignoring.

Uhh why is your 11 year old sister hanging around anyone from that horrid place?

Just do what I did when a religious person attacked me for liking anime because "anime leads into being gay" I sat in front of his church and watched anime on my iPad every Sunday for two months. I broke no law and offered no fight. Just sitting in front of his place watching anime.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=taIAjEIKazU[/youtube]

This is what our man had to say about my country. Glad he thinks I am a sodomite, and that I live in the land of the sodomite damned.

These people protested at a friend of mine's funeral a few years back. He was serving in the Army and died in combat (please don't make this a political thread. I'm anti-war, but he was still my friend, and his family didn't deserve to see those signs paraded around while they were grieving). As much as I'd like to dissolve them all alive in hydrofluoric acid, they have the right to express their beliefs in a public forum. Really, I think the best approach is, as some have done, to organize counter-protests.

Counter-protests with a positive attitude are AMAZINGLY effective. I once organized a pro-choice dance party in front of my neighborhood Planned Parenthood (which is blighted with pro-lifers on a weekly basis), and the response from passers-by/traffic was overwhelmingly supportive, people flipped out (in a good way)!

I agree that freedom of speech is important, but it is also impossible to deny that speech can be harmful. Even US law recognizes that and limits free speech when it comes to libel and slander. Many other countries have laws against hate speech for the exact same reason.

Hate speech is just another form of defamation. Not only is it hurtful for the victims, some of which are driven into suicide by verbal and textual bullying and harrassment, it can also incite physical violence against minority groups. Just look what Hitler accomplished with a hateful ideology and demagogy. Words do not only have the power to hurt, they can also dehumanize people in the public perception. That is not acceptable and cannot be tolerated.

"Gay is good" is not a discriminatory and inciting message, and there is no reason to limit this kind of free speech. But "god hates these people and thinks they are an abomination" is only a small step removed from "god wants us to punish them and purge them from society". Just look at Uganda, where lesbians are gang-raped, tortured and killed in public while the police stands by and does nothing.

It's sad that people are irrational animals that can easily be manipulated by words and ideologies. Some demagogue shouts "abortion doctors are baby murderers!", and some impressionable ape with a gun goes and shoots Dr. Tiller in the head in response. Words have power like that. I think it is the responsibility of a government to prevent attempts of mass manipulation that can lead to violence and suffering.