Funeral: A wake, a burial and a protest?

I got this from my CNN News headlines that get sent to my email on March 2, 2011:

"Supreme Court upholds Westboro Baptist Church's right to stage anti-gay protests at funerals of U.S. troops."

I found the full article on CNN U.S. HERE.

And all I could think of when I first read it was, "What the F*** is this??!!!"

The supreme court ruling was to protect the protester's first amendment rights to free speech. I can understand that but, regardless of their rights, there's a time and place for things.

Protesting on a divisive domestic issue at a funeral FOR A SOLDIER is insulting and disrespectful for both the grieving families as well as the soldier being buried, in my opinion!

And it's not just that these protesters are anti-gay, they're protesting under the belief that God is punishing the United States with killing U.S. soldiers BECAUSE of homosexuality! And the signs that they bring to their protests (according to the CNN article) read things like: "Thank God For Dead Soldiers", "God Blew Up The Troops", and "AIDS Cures Fags".

Some of the families have sued the church that organized the protests, have won, then had the decision overturned on appeal.

Quite frankly, I attribute these protesters to groups like the Ku Klux Klan and Neo Nazis. I wouldn't want them showing up at my house, my hometown and especially at a funeral for a soldier (or ANY family or loved one) protesting with anti-semitic or anti-black signs and rhetoric. We don't stand for that kind of treatment - even if it's against the First Amendment right of Free Speech - from those groups, so why are our courts upholding the First Amendment to anti-gay groups?

Because they ARE anti-gay! We curb the First Amendment rights to those that preach hatred based on ethnicity or religion, but gays are open season still in this country so those that preach homosexual slurs are protected under the First Amendment!

Personally, if my friend who's serving in Iraq right now was to come home in a pine box, and these protesters showed up at HIS funeral, I would get myself a couple of guns, point them at those protesters and tell them, "You have exactly FIVE SECONDS to get the f*** out of here before I exercise my Second Amendment right on you!!"

"Five........... four.............. three............... two....................."