Ooh, ooh! Somebody famous (well at least recognized in Washington) agrees with me! (Again)

On Fred Phelps of Westboro Baptist Church fame (you know, "God hates fags").  This time it's Amy Holmes of NRO with the absolutely brilliant thought here.  Money Graf:

In the midst of the Ground Zero mosque controversy, a related story on religious expression has been overlooked. This week, a federal judge ruled that the Westboro Baptist Church has a FirstAmendment right to picket military funerals with harassing, homophobic chants and signs:

Chief U.S. District Judge Fernando Gaitan said the state statute violated free speech protections guaranteed in the First Amendment by imposing excessive restrictions on the ability to conduct protests outside funerals. The judge, who is based in Kansas City, Mo., also ruled that the controversial protests did not amount to “fighting words,” which are unprotected by the Constitution and can be banned.
“Although plaintiff’s speech may be repugnant to listeners, the court finds that, at a minimum, some of plaintiff’s speech is entitled to constitutional protection,” Judge Gaitan said in a 19-page decision announced Monday.

Some questions: Should we, as Kathleen Parker suggests, support the Westboro Baptist Church’s ugly, anti-gay protests precisely because we don’t like the idea very much? Should we, as President Obama intoned last Friday, reach deep into our national character and declare our full-throated support for the right of this religious group to set up camp at a hallowed place without passing judgment on the wisdom of the church’s activities? After all, freedom of expression and freedom of religion are our most fundamental values upon which our nation was built.
Will we hear from left-wing commentators that, out of an abundance of tolerance, we must stand in solidarity with the Westboro Baptist Church (whose position on homosexuality is actually not all that different from fundamentalist Islam’s) in defense of religious freedom? I suspect not.
I suspect that those who are now excoriating the 68 percent of Americans who are uneasy with a $100 million mosque being built two blocks from Ground Zero would discover the distinction between what is a right, and what is right. I suspect the Westboro Church’s “free speech” would be roundly condemned as, at the very least, insensitive.