WESTBORO BAPTIST CHURCH OF HATE…AND DISHONESTY

The hate-mongers of the Westboro Baptist Church from Kansas, the group that recently lost a federal civil trial brought by the father of a fallen Marine whose funeral they targeted for protest in March 2006, submitted financial papers last week to the Federal Court judge who oversaw the trial. Since jurors returned a verdict of nearly $11 million dollars against the Westboro Church and several of its members, the Court ordered that financial statements be filed in order to ascertain just how much of the judgment the church itself should be forced to pay.

Unfortunately, the financial disclosure papers filed by the Westboro Church failed to reveal how the Church was paying for its members to travel around the country to conduct their hateful protests. The glaring nature of said omissions caused the attorneys of the deceased Marine’s father to assert that the Church was outright lying to the Court.

What? A church lying?

I find the message of hate being spread by members of the Westboro Church to be of the loathsome variety, and I have no sympathy for the plight of any of its members for seeking to shower hate and psychological anguish on grieving military families, but I’m also concerned about what affect the Westboro suit will have on the exercise of First Amendment Rights by groups who do not follow the opinions and sensibilities of the public-at-large. Whether the Westboro protests have crossed the constitutional boundary of protected free speech, given the facts of that case, is an issue the federal appellate Courts will have to decide. Nevertheless, the Westboro Church has done an huge disservice by not being forthright in their court-ordered financial disclosure statements. The First Amendment does not protect them from such dishonesty!

Come to think about it…neither does their God!