All of us should want to be “right” about everything we do and say. We should seek, moreover, to be considerate of the rights of others. But a very important part of our American freedom is the “right” to be “wrong.”
We are not at liberty to violate our laws, of course, nor to deny equal rights to others. But people naturally will not always agree on everything, and America’s Constitution guarantees the right to express differences – including some plainly obnoxious differences.
One example involves a painful but correct ruling this week by the United States Supreme Court, in an 8-1 decision.
The case arose from the 2006 funeral in Westminster, Md., of U.S. Marine Lance Cpl. Matthew Snyder, who died in Iraq.
Disgustingly, some meddlesome members of the tiny Westboro Baptist Church of Topeka, Kan., have chosen to demonstrate at more than 600 funerals across the country.