What the Heck was I Thinking!?

I’m going to see if this allows me to post as easily as Performancing does. If it does, I’ll use it.

Orson Scott Card, a wonderful author of a number of science fiction books blogs at The Ornery American. His blog entries are listed under Civilization Watch The most recent one, December 17, 2006 - Honoring Those Who Died - The Ornery American. His post contains some very poignant descriptions of a soldier escorting the casket of a deceased service member home to the family.
He mentioned that the family was meeting him and their deceased relative at a town away from where they lived because they didn’t want to encounter protesters. Card thought he meant the right wing scumballs who blame the war deaths on God’s vengeance against homosexuals. However,

Instead, his experiences were with demonstrators of an older, more familiar variety. "Hippie college students," he called one such group. "They egged the hearse."
On that occasion, the brother of the dead soldier was so hurt and angry at these strangers who dared to defile his brother’s memory and worsen his family’s suffering that "he clocked one of them."
So the brother was arrested for assault and could not be with his family for the rest of the services in honor of one of America’s fallen.
The demonstrators suffered no penalty. In fact, they received extra credit from a college professor because they had "taken part in a demonstration."

We may live in a country that tries to pretend that nothing is sacred, but in fact some things are. The grief of a family that has lost a beloved family member is surely such a thing. There is an aura of holiness, no matter what your beliefs might be. Even if you believe in no afterlife, there is still this life; there is still the decency we owe to fellow human beings who are suffering a loss that cannot be amended.

Some would say that, painful as it is, it’s the price of democracy.
I don’t think so. 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.

Let’s demand that Congress pass a law banning any kind of political demonstration within the sight or hearing of people in attendance at the funerals, viewings, or burials of men and women who died in uniform, and forbidding demonstrating at or defacing their grave.

Patriotic display would be exempted, of course — because the rituals of leavetaking should include the right of family and friends to speak in favor of what the soldier sacrificed for.