A soldier came home in a box, recently. Nothing new there, considering military activities in Iraq and Afghanistan. This soldier, one Staff Sgt. Christopher N. Piper, was killed by a roadside bomb in Afghanistan. He was a supporter of free speech, and a supporter of gay rights.

His hometown of Marblehead herladed him a hero, and everyone mourned his death. Except the protesters.

Why would anyone stage a protest at a hero’s funeral? Why, to point out that American soldiers are dying because America tolerates homosexuals, of course. That’s right. Ridiculous as it sounds, the Church of Westboro (www.godhatesfags.com, I kid you not), staged a protest, holding signs that said, “Thank God for I.E.D.s” and “God Hates Fags.”

Their well-reasoned (and of course, I inject the sum total of my scorn and derision into that) argument is that American service people are dying, and going straight to hell, in these conflicts because of America’s tolerant policies toward homosexuals. God hates homos, apprently, so he didn’t grant the power of invulnerability to our servicemen. I guess if we burned homosexuals at the stake, car bombs and copper-jacketed bullets would probably only cause minor bruising when they came into contact with American flesh.

I find myself extraordinarily torn. On the one hand, I respect the Freedom of Speech. The First Amendment of the Constitution is probably the amendment I hold most dear, especially in these McCarthian/Orwellian times.

On the other hand, I’d personally like to see someone take a baseball bat to every gods-damned bigot like the followers of this so-called ‘church’, beat the ever-loving snot out of them, then ask them why God let them suffer if they’re so damned great.

And even though their views are extreme, and they certainly don’t represent the full body of the Republican Party, the views of the most vocal constituents of the GOP certainly have more in common with these useless wastes of flesh than with the great majority of moderates in both parties or the left-wing liberals of the Democratic Party. I say this not to deride Republicans, but because these kinds of ultra right-wing crackpots are currently drowning out the voices of normal people with actual brains and having an effect on how we run the country. A country founded on the ideals of tolerance and freedom.

Use your voices people. Don’t let your future ever be decided by someone holding a god-damned “Thank God for I.E.D.s” sign.