Thankful Thursday: One Small Step for Humankind

As Chris­tians, we should all be rejoic­ing and giv­ing thanks today that a Mary­land jury has ren­dered an $11 mil­lion ver­dict against the church and sev­eral mem­bers of the West­boro Bap­tist church in Topeka, Kansas. The legal vic­tory is also a vic­tory for Chris­tians every­where who are embar­rassed, humil­i­ated, and out­raged by the out­ra­geous and decid­edly un-Christlike behav­ior not only of that group, but any orga­ni­za­tion that engages in hate speech and pro­motes big­otry, intol­er­ance, and dis­dain for any seg­ment of soci­ety — all in the sup­posed name of the Savior.

The West­boro clan is noto­ri­ous for its repul­sive and rep­re­hen­si­ble con­duct. In the case of Marine Corps Lance Cpl. Matthew Sny­der, they sub­jected a griev­ing father to emo­tional abuse and harass­ment. Admirably, that father decided to take action.

The mis­guided mem­bers of the West­boro church believe that Amer­i­can sol­diers are dying as a result of God’s wrath upon this nation for exhibit­ing tol­er­ance regard­ing sex­ual ori­en­ta­tion. They have made it their prac­tice to picket dur­ing funer­als for ser­vice men and women. ((Church mem­bers also plan to protest dur­ing funer­als for the seven Uni­ver­sity of South Car­olina stu­dents who recently died in a North Car­olina beach house fire.))

In this instance, church mem­bers — three adults and four chil­dren — stood out­side the Bal­ti­more, Mary­land, church where Matthew Snyder’s funeral was being con­ducted hold­ing signs dis­play­ing phrases like “Thank God for Dead Sol­diers” and “God Hates F—.”

They also demon­strated out­side the fed­eral cour­t­house dur­ing the trial. In par­tic­u­lar, their leader ((Their leader is an attor­ney.)) car­ried a sign that said “God is your enemy.” Hate is appar­ently a fam­ily affair: His adult daugh­ter stood on an Amer­i­can flag and boasted a sign that read “God hates — enablers,” while other mem­bers of the group sang “God Hates Amer­ica” to the tune of “God Bless America.”

Matthew Sny­der died as a result of injuries sus­tained in a motor vehi­cle acci­dent while serv­ing in Iraq.

The church’s attor­neys argued that his funeral was a pub­lic event and the group’s activ­i­ties were pro­tected by the First Amend­ment. How­ever, the United States Supreme Court has always held that First Amend­ment pro­tec­tions are not unlim­ited, espe­cially with regard to, for exam­ple, hate speech or incit­ing violence.

The right of free speech must be bal­anced against other com­pet­ing, fun­da­men­tal rights such as, in this case, the right to pri­vacy, i.e., the right to be let alone, espe­cially dur­ing an intensely per­sonal and emo­tional event such as the bur­ial of one’s child.

Matthew’s father said he was com­pelled to pur­sue legal reme­dies because he was out­raged by the group’s attempted use of the “First Amend­ment guar­an­tee of free speech to spread hate and inflict pain on griev­ing fam­i­lies.” He was most offended by signs that said “You’re going to hell” and “God hates you.”

Defi­ant in the face of such a huge legal defeat, the group’s leader promised an appeal. “God promised dire out­pour­ings of very painful wrath, and there’s noth­ing more painful than killing one of your chil­dren and that’s what’s going on in Iraq,” he told msnbc.com in 2006. “That’s what we’re preach­ing and the forum of choice to deliver such a mes­sage, obvi­ously, is the funeral of the kid that’s been blown to smithereens.”

Sev­eral states already have laws on the books that pro­hibit protests at funer­als and Con­gress enacted a fed­eral statute pro­hibit­ing protests at fed­eral ceme­ter­ies. But this law­suit is believed to be the first pros­e­cuted by the fam­ily of a deceased mem­ber of the military.

Chris­tians across Amer­ica should imme­di­ately lobby their leg­is­la­tors to enact sim­i­lar leg­is­la­tion if none exists in their state.

The behav­ior of the zeal­ous defen­dants in this case begs the answer to the ques­tion, “What would Jesus do?” Would he taunt, harass, vex, and set out to delib­er­ately inflict pain upon the griev­ing fam­i­lies of men and women who are serv­ing their coun­try in Iraq, Afghanistan or any other part of the world? Would he tell those fam­i­lies that he hates their deceased son, daugh­ter, hus­band, wife, father, mother, sis­ter, brother … ? Or that he hates those left behind to mourn?

One need look no fur­ther than the very first chap­ter of the New Tes­ta­ment to find the answers to those questions:

Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the king­dom of heaven.
Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be com­forted.
Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth.
Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for right­eous­ness, for they will be filled.
Blessed are the mer­ci­ful, for they will be shown mercy.
Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God.
Blessed are the peace­mak­ers, for they will be called sons of God.
Blessed are those who are per­se­cuted because of right­eous­ness, for theirs is the king­dom of heaven.
Blessed are you when peo­ple insult you, per­se­cute you and falsely say all kinds of evil against you because of me. Rejoice and be glad, because great is your reward in heaven, for in the same way they per­se­cuted the prophets who were before you.

Matthew 5:3–11

In addi­tion to rejoic­ing and thank­ing the Divine Cre­ator for the wis­dom and courage of that Mary­land jury, we must, of course, pray for the igno­rant hate­mon­gers involved in this law­suit, as well as any per­son who con­dones or encour­ages their vile behav­ior. We must ask the Holy Spirit to enter and change their hard, bit­ter hearts and reveal to them the true nature of the one who offered his life for each and every one of us.

The Mary­land jury ver­dict is just one small step for humankind in the fight for equal­ity, fair­ness, and tol­er­ance. Let’s hope that fur­ther steps are taken by leg­is­la­tures across this great coun­try so that the behav­ior which formed the basis for this law­suit is erad­i­cated in its entirety soon, leav­ing griev­ing fam­i­lies to mourn in peace.

Update: On Fri­day, Novem­ber 2, 2007, “20/20″ broad­cast a report on this report on the verdict:

What are you thank­ful for today? Leave a com­ment and link to your Thank­ful Thurs­day post! Thanks go out to Crys­tal for being our won­der­ful host this week!

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