What if the real objective of the Westboro Baptist Church is to get hate speech legislation introduced in the US?
I've always been rather apathetic about the whole hate speech vs. free speech issue. I can see where both sides are coming from, but the status quo doesn't bother me and there are many other things I'm more interested in reading and thinking and talking about.
But when they threatened to protest Tim McLean's funeral, I instantly became an ardent supporter of our hate speech laws. Nothing I might ever conceivably have to say under any imaginable circumstances is nearly as important as getting them to STFU.
What if their intention was to produce this very sentiment in a large segment of the population? What if they brought their act to Canada so people could see how much easier it is to get them to STFU in a country with hate speech laws? What if their ostensible thesis is OMG TEH GAY despite its irrelevance to the things they are picketing so that the public will support including homophobia under the definition of hate speech?
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