American Style:

Free speech countering free speech.

(Hint: the bikers come through.)
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George McEvoy last week expressed similar thoughts in responding to members of the Westboro Baptist Church of Topeka (Fred Phelps' family):

...

Shirley Phelps-Roper, an attorney for the church, said that God struck down the dead soldiers and Marines because they were fighting to protect homosexuals and adulterers. According to her, I suppose, Woodrow Wilson said the First World War was fought to "make the world safe for adultery."

Personally, I was getting pretty much fed up with the supporters of this war saying guys like me were against the troops and undermining their morale.

Nothing could be further from the truth. As an ex-soldier, I just don't like to see our people dying in a war we had no reason to fight.

But I also demand that those who give their all in this war be treated with respect and honor. Whether the war is justified or not, their lives are sacred.

As for the clash between free speech and privacy, I find myself in a strange position.

As a journalist, I've always stood on the side of the First Amendment. Without free speech and a free press, there can be no freedom.

But with freedom comes responsibility — and a certain amount of good taste.

That virtue seems to have skipped over the little Westboro Baptist Church of Topeka.

Maybe we should wait until one of their congregation dies, then show up at the funeral with signs attacking bigotry.

I think my old pal Murphy wouldn't approve of this war, either. But I can just about hear his reaction if he saw any of this Kansas bunch interrupting the solemn sound of taps.