What was it they paved the road to Hell with again...?

As you're probably already aware, the Westboro Baptist Church has been ordered to pay a civil judgment of $10.9 million to the family of a Marine who died in combat in Iraq. Mr. Fred Phelps and his group were protesting at the funeral, and the family successfully sued. According to the Baltimore Sun, "The jury found the defendants liable for violating the Snyder family's expectation of privacy at the funeral and for intentionally inflicting emotional distress".

I don't think many people would argue that what Phelps and his ilk do is right. They are disturbed and disturbing individuals, and they shame the Christian world with their hate. But this ruling, as appropriate as it seems on the surface, is setting a dangerous precedent for the future of freedom of speech in this country, especially religious free speech, which is already on shaky ground.

While many people are aware of the various hate speech laws that have been passed in countries like Canada and Sweden, where certain portions of the Bible have been labeled as hate speech, far too few people are aware of the efforts, sometimes successful, to get similar legislation passed here in the United States. The Local Law Enforcement Hate Crimes Prevention Act, originally drafted in 2001, has recently been passed by the Senate. The bill would add sexual orientation, gender, gender identity, and disability to the demographics currently protected by hate crimes laws. President Bush has said he will veto it, but i doubt they will stop trying. And already people in this country are being arrested on hate speech charges. In Philadelphia, 11 people were arrested and 4 were set to stand trial for protesting at a gay pride parade. They were being charged with three felonies and five misdemeanors for praying and reading the Bible aloud at an event known as "Outfest". Luckily the charges were recently thrown out. And a Brooklyn man has been arrested and is facing hate crime charges for throwing a copy of the Koran in a toilet at Pace University. And right here in California, where I live, Gov. Schwarzennegger just signed a bill into law that makes the same changes to California's hate crimes laws as the Senate's bill would make to the federal laws. It takes effect in January.

The Westboro judgment has set a precedent for other lawsuits against Christians. As despicable as their message is, Phelps and his people weren't actually breaking any laws. Apparently they have been very careful to observe every restriction on where and when you can protest, limits on distance and such. So it's not any legal violations that they've been sued for, it's their message. Which means that now any Christian that says something that someone finds objectionable can be sued for it. And if it's not the means but the message, why stop at protests? Why not sue a priest or minister for telling his congregation that homosexual behavior is a sin? Why not sue a blogger or columnist for writing that Islam is a violent religion? People in Canada and Sweden have been jailed for doing just those things.

This ruling is bound to set off a wave of anti-Christian lawsuits across the country. And when it gets bad enough, all it will take to cross over from civil to criminal law is one liberal judge. It's already happening in Philadelphia and New York without that precedent, so just imagine how bad it will get with the precedent. And once speech contrary to "progressive" ideals is a crime, it's only a matter of time before Christianity itself is labeled hate speech, and outlawed.

Already a growing number of both liberal and conservative columnists and bloggers are expressing similar concerns about the potential consequences of this case. Even some Gay Rights blogs and college progressives are worried about what might happen to the First Amendment as a result, which is indicative of the larger threat to civil liberties this poses. And just in case anyone wants to brush these concerns off as paranoia, even legal blogs are discussing the threat.

So why has so much effort been put into pathetic little scabs like the Phelps clan, when the KKK and various Neo-Nazi groups still enjoy their First Amendment rights? If we have to suffer the racist ravings of these people for the sake of freedom of speech, what makes the Westboro slime any different? Is it simply because nobody has taken the KKK seriously in decades? Or is it because their right to spew their venom has already been upheld in federal court? I don't know which would be worse, the criminalization of Christianity, or being forced to cite the federal protection of racist scum to prevent it, thereby drawing a perverted sense of equivalency between the two.

Also relevant to this issue is the fact that nobody is being arrested or sued for anti-Christian hate speech. When was the last time someone was jailed for urinating on the Bible? Forget jail, we'll give them a federal grant! When was the last time someone even suggested prosecuting someone for anti-Christian hate speech? It's hard enough just to get actual threats against Christians investigated, let alone prosecuted! But as soon as you point out the double standard, you are labeled as "homophobic" or "Islamophobic". I applaud the handful of liberals, like those that wrote the above mentioned blogs, that have the courage to speak out against such things regardless of the heat they will probably get for it from their peers. As the wise Dumbledore once said, "It takes a great deal of bravery to stand up to your enemies, but a great deal more to stand up to your friends."