Hannah+P's+OpEd+Article

= = =media type="file" key="hannahp-muckraker-2011.mp3"= =﻿ Protesting at Soldiers' Funerals = = By: Hannah Padaoan = Everyone is dressed in black, mourning a falling soldier in a cold silence only broken with weeping. Multiple cry for the loss of their loved one who died for the love of this red, white, and blue America. A little girl crying on the floor can barely believe her daddy is gone and her sad sobs are momentarily silenced by a person holding a sign nearby, a sickeningly judgmental look on his face. The wife and now single mother turns from weeping with her mother-in-law who has just lost her only son to see tons of protesters yelling with signs reading “Thank God for dead soldiers” and “Pray for more dead soldiers”.

Now that a picture has been painted in one’s head, it’s truly sickening to know that events like this truly happen. I don’t give a care of what these protesters are saying, because in order to protest at a funeral of a soldier, they must be heartless, twisted, and sick. Free speech is a privilege in the United States but protesting and thanking God for the death of a soldier is abusing that and taking it entirely too far.

The protesters are anti-gay and think that God is punishing the United States for accepting homosexuality. They could protest at a soldier’s funeral who is straight or one that approved of homosexuality yet either way this protesting is WRONG. (I am not going to talk about homosexuality for that is a whole another debate.) Although this law is not written down in the Constitution, it is a common law of decency and having a heart.

It is hard to not feel a deepening anger at these protesters. Parents, imagine losing your son or daughter; Daughters/Sons, imagine losing your dad or mom; Siblings, imagine losing your brother or sister; Spouses, imagine losing your husband or wife; Friends, imagine losing your close friend...and at the funeral to mourn the loss of this loved one who fought bravely for his/her country, imagine protesters yelling that his/her death was okay and saying “Thank God for dead soldiers”. It’s sick.

I will not apologize for saying these protesters are emotionally inhumane, unbelievably insensitive, heartless, and cold.

They must be stopped. They deeply offend and hurt those already grieving the death of a loved one, who, nonetheless, was bravely serving this great country.