So now that the background is set . . . what happened this past weekend?
Well, a young Sgt. First Class C.J. Sadell was killed in October while serving in Afghanistan. His funeral was held this past weekend. He was 34 years old and left behind a wife and two small kids. And wouldn't you know, that awful Westboro Baptist Church from Topeka, KS decided to show up and protest at his funeral.
Well, when the town of Weston, MO found out that Westboro Baptist was going to show up at the funeral, they planned their own event to stop them. Several hundered people (more than 24% of the town's total population!) showed up early to form a human shield to stop the church from being able to protest at the funeral.
They arrived early in separate vehicles in order to take up all of the town's parking spaces so there would be no where for the arriving Westboro Church to park anywhere near the cemetary where the funeral was to be held.
Then they held their own peaceful protest against the church's actions by holding up signs of support for the grieving family and loads of American flags. One flag was so very large and place strategically so that the family would not have to see the church members with their hateful signs.
When the church saw the town's turnout in support for the family, they quickly gave up and went home. While I still believe that the Supreme Court would be justified in allowing the church to protest within restrictions (not within so much time before or after a funeral) and within space (not within so many feet of a funeral), what a way for a town to show that this sort of awful behavior is not welcome.
Hooray for Weston! I've rarely seen a finer example of regular, average people and what we stand for. While we continue to wait for the Supreme Court to make their decision, let's continue make sure that we, the regular, average people have the courage to stand up for what is right!
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