In a recent article, Orson Scott card summed up what has been bothering me so much about demonstrations at funerals of fallen service men and women. It is poignant enough to share.

We make many exceptions to the free-speech rule. Weak as they are, we still have libel and slander laws, for instance. More relevant to this case, however, our Supreme Court has upheld an obvious violation of the right to free speech and free public assembly, by allowing laws to remain in effect that ban any kind of demonstration close to an abortion clinic. You can’t even kneel and pray silently on the sidewalk outside the clinic.

If the right to kill your fetus is so sacred that you cannot be allowed to see or hear anyone who would like to discourage you from doing such a thing, regardless of the Constitution, then is it unreasonable to protect the families whose children died in war from having to see or hear demonstrators against the cause for which their children were sacrificed?

The double standard is obvious. The same ACLU which pushed so hard to enforce the limits to our free speech in protesting at abortion clinics is the same ACLU which stood behind the Westboro Hate Cult. I will not even ask how they can justify this disparity, because the can not and will not.

I encourage you to read the entire article, though it is long in typical Card fashion.

Card ends with this point, and I will too.

Whatever we might think about the wisdom of the choices of our political leaders, the soldiers themselves who carry out those choices should be immune to hostility when they return to our shores.

They have earned a safe haven and a quiet resting place here.