Belial,
No photograph is respectful. No photograph is disrespectful. A photograph is a recorded image. A recording of what is. Reality is not respectful, nor is it disrespectful.
How an image is used or presented can be very disrespectful indeed.
For example, a few years ago, there was a picture entitled “Piss Christ” exhibited in several places, including Melbourne in 1997. Due to the way that the image was presented, it engendered such antipathy that it was seriously damaged, and the exhibit closed. A similar fate befell “The Holy Virgin Mary”. It was not that the images were themselves blasphemous; an image is after all only an image, but that they were presented in such a way as to antagonize people who had existing strong beliefs about the subject matter. As an aside, note that the responses elicited were so passionate that the exhibits were cancelled, thus depriving everyone of the opportunity to see the images. Most regrettable, and so avoidable.
Below is a link to a politically focused site. If you’ll take the time to follow it, you’ll see what has already been done with mere images. While some may take the picture in stride as an acceptable political “statement”, I suspect that others would consider it disrespectful. Composing a mosaic of a nation’s political executive out of images of dead people can plausibly be argued as disrespectful.
http://amleft.blogspot.com/archives...112087436221697
The last two American Presidents have had the dubious distinction of polarizing the political environment. The discourteous and nasty tactics which have become the political norm play into the hands of people on both the Right and the Left who seem to delight in savaging people with whom they disagree.
Now place yourself in the position of the Dover AFB commander. To make these images available on demand from a military facility is to be an accessory before the fact of a political statement. Is it fitting for the military to facilitate any particular type of political statement?
It is true that these images of coffins are only images. I believe that there is no prohibition of photography of the coffins once they have been released to the families of the deceased. Until then, how they may be used is very much within the purview of the managing organization, in this case the U.S. Air Force.