Recently, the notorious Westboro Baptist Church (WBC) came to Clayton to protest a local high school’s Gay-Straight Alliance. However, the response from our local community was enormous. The number of people participating in the counter-protest dwarfed the actual five-person contingent of WBC members who came to Clayton. While we can all agree that the things the WBC says are hurtful and hateful, the amount of time and attention given to them, even by those who oppose them, is absolutely ridiculous. We shouldn’t be counter-protesting these people; we should just be letting their comments go.

Let’s establish one thing from the start; I do not condone any of the words or actions of the Westboro Baptist Church. With that said, as an American who supports our rights to freedom of speech and expression, I feel compelled to let the WBC protest as much as they like. Voltaire put it best when he said, “I do not agree with what you have to say, but I’ll defend to the death your right to say it”.

What we need to understand is that as crazy as the Westboro Baptist Church and its members are, they are still American citizens and are guaranteed the right to protest and condemn to hell whoever they so choose. To claim that they don’t have a right to say what they want to say goes against the very values that this country stands for. The real test of free speech is not defending the words and actions of those you agree with from censorship, but rather defending those of the people you disagree with.

Another thing to consider: The members of the Westboro Baptist Church, with their ridiculous tactics, might just be trying to get a rise out of you. A recent viral video featured on reddit.com revealed an entirely different side of Margie Phelps, one of the better known members of the WBC and one of its founder’s children. In the video, Margie Phelps, wearing her trademark “God Hates Fags” t-shirt, has a civil, I daresay even friendly, conversation with an openly gay DJ during a protest in New York City, and it is revealed that this DJ was even invited to the Phelps’ for Easter dinner.

While this is certainly only one specific instance, the very notion that a WBC member would invite an openly gay, supposedly damned-to-hell, ruining-America homosexual into her home should change your perception of the church. The WBC members say sensational and spiteful things to upset you. They know that the more outrageous they are, the more people that they offend, the louder and more widely their message will be heard. Even better, they could upset people so much their opponents end up suing the church, bringing the church more publicity and possibly even money.

The best way to make the WBC go away and stop saying hurtful things might not be a big, grand protest. It might be to let them use their First Amendment rights to freedom of speech of assembly in peace and ignore them. If they have no audience, then their hate cannot be heard.

No, you don’t have to like these people, but, instead of counter-protesting everything they do, just ignore them. It might be harder, and it might insult our sensibilities a little, but we live in a society in which the freedom of speech is supposed to be protected, no matter what someone says.