"Let's try some quick thought experiments.

1. If a grandma buys a sawed-off shotgun and holds up a liquor store, should the cops capture and arrest her?

2. Let's say "grandma" got hold of a nuclear device and was threatening to blow up Houston or Sioux City ; should SWAT team snipers avoid a head shot, even if grandma's finger was on the nuclear trigger, because grandma was..... well..... somebody's grandma?

Maybe we've established some parameters on what grandmas can get away with. Now:

3) Let's say the people who lynched Matthew Shepherd were grandmas. Should those hypothetical lynching grandmas have gotten a pass simply because they've had kids who have then had kids ? Or, is lynching just bad regardless of who does it?

Now, lets try another case involving some real live American grandmas:

4) Should grandmas get to hang out at gay pride events while shouting verses from Deuteromony on how homosexuals are to be put to death?  What if these grandmas say they're just "preaching the Gospel"? And, should said grandmas be arrested if cops show up and ask the grandmas to move along away from said gay pride event?

What, and who, is "Faith2Action" ?

Well....

Janet L. Folger is the President and Founder of Faith2Action - created to WIN the cultural war by working TOGETHER with the most effective organizations on the side of faith and family. She hosts a daily radio program, Faith2Action with Janet Folger, (from 2-3 p.m. EST) currently in 27 markets. She also has a 60-second daily commentary that is heard on about 70 stations. The talk show and commentaries can also be heard anywhere on the Faith2Action website at F2A.ORG.....

Before she started Faith2Action in 2003, Janet served as the National Director for the Center for Reclaiming America, founded by Dr. D. James Kennedy [from 1997-2002] where she launched an online effort that resulted in one of the largest pro-family grassroots armies in the nation-more than 500,000 strong

Before that, Janet served for nine years as Legislative Director of Ohio Right to Life where she successfully lobbied for passage of the nation's first and partial-birth abortion ban, which sparked the national debate in Congress and throughout the country. She also secured passage of the Woman's Right to Know Law, Parental Consent, Fetal Homicide, Clinic Regulations, Adoption reform, as well as removing all state funding of abortion.

What's worth adding to the picture, perhaps, is this :

The views aired at the protest in question, by Michael Marcavage and the "bullhorn grandmas"  bore a fair resemblance to attitudes voiced at protests by Fred Phelps' Westboro Baptist church and to the views of Pastor John Hagee, founder of the new national lobby CUFI, Christians United For Israel", who has, errr..... severe opinions about gays. Specifically, Hagee told Terry Gross, on 'Fresh Air' last September 2006, that New Orleans was destroyed by Hurrican Katrina because of a gay pride march that had been scheduled to happen in the city.  Hagee also spoke before a considerable fraction of the US Congress at this year's AIPAC conference held in Washington DC, February 2007.

Yesterday, I wrote about the seeming incongruity of the fact that Westboro Baptist gets accorded "fringe" status while John Hagee gets personal, private meetings with powerful politicians such as John McCain and Roy Blunt.

"I hate to say it, but I'm glad for the existence of Westboro Baptist because Fred Phelps' church helps expose a hateful underbelly of parts of American Christianity : not even the "Christian right", because there are many in that tendency (which gets defined differently by different people) who would be quick to condemn Westboro Baptist for its hate-saturated protests at the funerals of Gay US service members killed in Iraq. But, Westboro Baptist represents the quintessence of a tendency within Christianity, mirrored no doubt within Islam as well, that presumes to know which societal groups and even which cities and entire geographical regions are slated for the wrath of divine destruction for alleged sins. It's easy to take Westboro Baptist's "hate song" as a parody of itself, but consider this ; people with very similar beliefs, such as Texas megachurch pastor John Hagee, currently have connections in American politics, to powerful politicians such as John McCain and Roy Blunt and even to the President of the United States, George W. Bush. But more to the point, Hagee is spearheading a new Jewish-Christian alliance that's helping to propel the US towards war with Iran ; Hagee thinks this will precipitate Armageddon.

Westboro Baptist singles out gays in particular, but some leaders on the Christian express the tendency by declaring that, for example, the destruction of much of New Orleans by hurricane Katrina was divine retribution for that city's sins.

After the devastation of Katrina, it was widely rumored, and then exposed as a hoax, that Pat Robertson had described Katrina as divine retribution. It was a hoax, but at least one rising Christian right leader did just that : John Hagee. On a September 2006 segment of Terry Gross' "Fresh Air", John Hagee stated that the devastation, by hurricane, of New Orleans was divine punishment for a gay parade that had been scheduled in that city.

John Hagee was keynote speaker at the American Israel Public Affairs Committee last February, 2006 : approximately one half of the US Senate and House of Representatives attended the event, and a large number of those attended John Hagee's keynote speech. Hagee has also speculated that the apocalyptic war he expects and which he seems to have created a new national lobby to promote ( CUFI, Christians United For Israel ) may result in the nuclear destruction of the East and West coasts of the United States : for insufficient support of the sort of far right Israeli politics Hagee advocates.

In other words, John Hagee is, in some ways, like Fred Phelps writ large: except that Fred Phelps doesn't give addresses to nearly one half of the US Congress or meet with powerful GOP politicians such as John McCain and Roy Blunt.

As governor of Texas George W. Bush was known to have frequented Hagee's San Antonio based Cornerstone Baptist Church, and Hagee has boasted that he has "broken bread" with former governor Bush."