The unfortunate coverage associated with bad views of Christianity and the Muslim faith alike

A couple of days ago someone pointed out that I had two differing views on a topic in the same post. It came from my need to give some credence to the ideas that disagree with mine, but it is not the only time I find myself in conflict with myself. Take the situation with the incredibly vile and to my mind utterly worthless members of Westboro Baptist Church. These are the malignant and maleficent idiots that protest at military funerals with signs that say such warm and fluffy things as “Semper Fi Fags” and “God Hates You”. They are protesting what they see as the over acceptance of homosexuality in America. They believe that God is punished the United States with 9/11 for our tolerance of our gay citizens.

This is where the conflict comes about. On the one hand they are out there protesting against people that I have lived with all my life. I was a kid actor; I basically grew up in a small professional kid’s repertory theater. There were gay and lesbian adults among our stage managers, our directors and our choreographers. There were gay kids in the troop. Even in the late 70’s and 80’s it was no big deal. They are and were good artists and performers and that mattered a hell of a lot more than whom they were dating or living with.

As egalitarian as things were inside that community it was not all peaches and cream. When Sid got the crap kicked out of him by some local skinhead punks, it came home to me how little tolerance the world had for some of the most important people in my life at that time. I am not proud of the fact that several of us went out and met violence with violence by kicking the crap out of that group of punks, but it seemed like the right thing to do at the time.

"Originally posted at Squarestate.net

The Supreme Court will decide whether the father of a fallen Marine is entitled to damages from Westboro Baptist Church. The infamous church in Topeka, KS routinely pickets the funerals of soldiers killed in Iraq and Afghanistan. They make the claim that God is punishing the United States through military deaths because it tolerates homosexuals. [...]

Westboro Baptist Church — In Vermont This Week to Protest Its New Same-Gender Marriage Law — Has Long Condemned Homosexuality as an ‘Abomination,’ But Its Members Have Long Criminal Records and Its Iron-Fisted Leader Has a History of ‘Abominable’ Personal Behavior Himself, Including Wild Binges on Booze and Drugs and Repeated Episodes of Violent Abuse of His Wife and Children