A good portion of my readers in the U.S. know by now that longtime Penn State football coach Joe Paterno died. According to CNN, Paterno died with his family by his side after a short battle with lung cancer. Arrangements for the funeral will be made public sometime in the next couple days. One thing I think the Paterno family did not factor in its plans would be the appearance of members of the Westboro Baptist Church.
The Hollywood Reporter is saying the controversial group plans to picket Paterno's funeral. Yes, the same group that pickets the funerals of soldiers under the auspices of religious grounds, clinging to strands of the First Amendment as their right to do so.
The church, and it ills me to refer to it as such, is doing this for the same reasons it always pickets funerals. To draw attention to its members and spread a message of hate. Paterno had not been dead for half a day when the Phelps family-run church made its intentions known to picket the funeral.
It's wrong of them. Picketing a funeral, any funeral, is wrong and speaks nothing of proper Christian values. Its reasoning is because of his involvement in the Jerry Sandusky scandal. But they are putting the cart before the horse. You want to protest, protest in front of Sandusky's house. Stop desecrating people's graves.
According to Fox News the group threatens to show up to protest more often than it actually does. I would hope for the participants of any potential protest that they fail to show. Paterno was a well-beloved figure in and out of football. To Penn State, he was as much of a necessity to the school as textbooks.
If the Westboro Baptist Church thinks a few of the Patriot Guard Riders is tough for them to deal with, the thousands that will show up in Happy Valley to honor Joe Paterno will hopefully make them rethink the way they try and get their point across.

source: yahoo