What "Freedom Isn't Free" Means

It is just a guess, but we're guessing that Pastor Fred Phelps of the Westboro Baptist Church in Topeka, KS likely lumped the American Civil Liberties Union among the "fag enablers" until very recently. Maybe he still does. Pastor Fred is not noted for the rationality of his discourse.

Which led him and his tiny fanatic flock to arrange noisy "anti-fag" protests at the funerals of soldiers killed in the line of duty in Iraq. Don't ask. We don't pretend to understand the connection. As noted above, Fred seems to be a few donuts short of a dozen.

Anyhow, these distasteful displays led the good people of Kentucky to enact a ban on such protests within three hundred feet of such services. Now the First Amendment to our Constitution permits reasonable restrictions on speech regarding "time, place and manner". Who could argue that the Kentucky ban was less than reasonable ?

The aforementioned ACLU could and has brought suit against the ban on behalf of Pastor Fred and his fag hating flock. Before you tear up your ACLU membership card (you do have one, don't you ?) please recall that the ACLU has been here before, defending the Constitution for the very people it was designed to protect, the despised minority. Despised like Phelps?, we hear you cry. Despised like the Nazis, the Klan and NAMBLA. Even despised like Rush Limbaugh. Go figure.

Keep the ACLU alive. They are not perfect, but they are perhaps the only truly dependable guardians of our First Amendment liberties. Stand by them and

Saty Nkaed
jd