Imagine telling someone that god hates soldiers.  What would his or her response be?  What if John Doe died fighting in Afghanistan and his funeral was picketed by a group of angry people with signs which exclaimed “THANK GOD FOR DEAD SOLDIERS”?  Does this seem surreal at all?  Does this even exist?  Why would anyone ever consider condemning a soldier who died for his country?  Sadly, this type of activity does exist.  There is a group of people known as the Westboro Baptist Church which seems to just hate everything.  I say “John Doe” when speaking of the soldier because a quick internet search yields literally dozens of occasions where this group picketed the funerals of recently fallen soldiers.  It would be unjust to account only one anecdote of one soldier when so many have been condemned by this group.  The Westboro Baptist church is hardly a church at all and more like a cult.  The Westboro website is literally www.Godhatesfags.com.  On the site one may find many things including the schedule the group has for picketing.  I never knew I could feel so much hatred when I first read about the Westboro Baptist Church.  I studied, and studied the group and read everything I could about it.  After many days I came to an odd conclusion.  The Westboro Baptist Church has many good and bad effects on this country, on its communities, and on its people.

Living in America has its benefits.  Face it, even in a struggling economy, America is still a preferable place to be.   Every citizen is entitled to the freedoms of religion, assembly, press, petition, and the freedom of speech.  These can be rather controversial at times and limited in some ways, but those ways are not usually major.   It probably isn’t a good idea to scream the “F-bomb” in elementary school, and it’s definitely a bad idea to yell “BOMB!” in an airport.  When it comes to one’s average freedoms, one should think to his or herself “Do I have the freedom of speech?”  The absolute answer is “Yes, you do.”  Let the Westboro Baptist Church be a constant reminder of freedom of speech.