Stop disrespecting soldiers!

I saw something today that disgusted me. It’s relatively old news, but it’s the first time I’d actually seen the story on tv. It seems there are some Christians who have made it a point to undermine Christianity at all costs. What makes it even worse is that these guys are a bunch of Baptists, which is what I was raised as. The churches my parents went to were never so ridiculous. What I’m speaking about is the group who is protesting at soldier’s funerals. This made me so sick and outraged! They claim that 11 Sept 2001 was punishment because America is tolerant to gays. They also believe that the soldiers have done evil because they are fighting for an evil administration.

Despite the disrespect to these brave soldiers who are putting their lives on their line and widowing their families, the idea of protesting at someone’s funeral is so outrageous. Apparently these supposed holier-than-thous haven’t read the new testament where Jesus says that God puts rulers in charge of countries. That means that God wanted Bush to be president, so if you are going to be a radical Christian, be radical all the way, not just with select passages.

Sure, we have adapted a policy in the religious world of dissent against wars that were waged for arbitrary reasons, however, we are still supposed to obey our leaders. Read the Bible for once instead of being on the news and making people think, once again, “It’s those kooky Christians.”

Long-time readers of this blog and its predecessor will know that I am firmly against this war. Afghanistan was iffy, but we had to go after the Taliban, so I was generally for that one. I don’t really like the idea of preemtive wars, so Iraq just didn’t seem like a just war to me. HOWEVER, I have always supported our men and women in uniform. Most of them are just kids - even younger than I am! And we are asking them to go to a type of war we’ve never fought before (other than Vietnam). Iraq doesn’t want us there and they the opposition just cowardly blows people up instead of fighting head-on. Sure, it’s the smart thing to do if your army is crap compared to the US, but it still is a pretty shady thing to do. (Whatever, there are no rules in war and I’m digressing) Anyway, we owe these kids and their families our respect, and their funerals should NOT be used as a way to protest.

Luckily there are 16 000 motorcyclists who are mostly war vetarans who have decided to work hard to help these families out. They go to soldiers funerals and block out the protestors with large American flags. Way to go guys! As a quick aside, despite their hard image, I’ve found bikers on the average to be a very sympathetic group. When I worked at CB Smith thousands of bikers used to come every year with toys for tots and drive in with as many toys as they could on their motorcycles.

So if you don’t like the war or just don’t like gays, go protest at 1600 Penn Ave. Bush took us to war, not the soldiers. They have to fight whereever we decide to fight. Lobby and protest and write letters to Congress, but DO NOT abuse our soldiers. I think God will rebuke you quite strongly in the final days for pestering these innocent soldiers.