Oct 12, 2013 1 min read

It’s hard to find many silver linings in the ongoing partial shutdown of the federal government, but we think we have found one.

The robed spreaders of hate in the Ku Klux Klan had planned to hold one of their rallies outside the cemetery at the Gettysburg Civil War battlefield Oct. 5. The site is now a national park and has been closed as a result of the feuding on Capitol Hill. As an alternative, a few of them made their way into Gettysburg borough that day instead of going to the battlefield itself to serve up their menu of poisonous grievances, which included immigration and, you guessed it, long-refuted allegations that President Obama is not actually a U.S. citizen. They then drove off and, we presume, crawled back under the rock from which they emerged.

While members of the Ku Klux Klan have the right to speak their piece, thanks to the U.S. Constitution’s guarantee of free speech, that they were deprived of the opportunity to do so on some of the most hallowed ground in the country is at least a small blessing.