I can't stand Fred Phelps. No, that's not strong enough. I think he is a repugnant, evil, hell-bound soul. So I'm elated that a court finally decided AGAINST the provocateur pastor and ordered him to pay millions to the family of a victim of one of his funeral protests.

But something is bugging me about this story.

Long before Fred Phelps started protesting military funerals, the gay community was very familiar with Fred. You see, Fred was protesting the funerals of hate-crime victims and People With AIDS for a decade before he got picked up in the media spotlight. The media seems to think that all he's ever done wrong is protest soldier funerals. Does a soldier's funeral deserve more solemnity than anyone else's? Do the parents of a soldier deserve more peace than the parents of any child? Are we still placing the worth of gay lives below that of the lives of anyone else?

The answer, to mainstream society anyway, seems to be yes. Remember, Fred Phelps has been protesting for nearly a decade, but it was not until last year that any law-making body tried to step in. That is when lawmakers from Kansas to Michigan passed laws making it illegal to protest at the funeral of a soldier. The message is: its fine for you to defile the solemnity of the funeral of gay people, just don't pick on our soldiers.

What about a law that prevents protesting at ANY funeral? Is it ok to protest at the funeral of a controversial artist, just as long as he wasn't also in the armed services? Basic human dignity and prudence is what the issue is here, and Americans seem to have lost any sense of both of those. Its obvious, the value that we put on one another diminishes on a daily basis, while self-centeredness and selfishness rise daily. Just look at the way we are treating one another on a daily basis--the gossip, the viciousness, look at TV, look at the tabloids, look at ourselves. We've lost any sense of duty, obligation or link to other people--because it gets in the way of our multi-tasking and ipod playlist. Americans are drawing inward more and more, and their politics are reflecting it. We are becoming selective isolationists that believe in mandating other people be "just like me" so that we don't have to endure the discomfort of dealing with differences and diversity.