Another Point of Singularity

I first heard about Fred Phelps and his little band of headline grabbers back during the trial of the murderers of Matthew Shephard of Laramie, WY. Shephard was the kid that met up with a couple of beer-swilling, fag-bashin' rednecks who tied Shephard to a fence and beat him to death. The movie THE LARAMIE PROJECT documents this. Phelps and his crew decended upon Laramie during the trial to broadcast their form of intolerance to a news media that was all to willing to give them some headlines. It turns up they didn't dry up and go away after Laramie. Read on:

Hecklers harass families of US soldiers killed in Iraq
Mar 12 7:21 AM US/Eastern


Five women sang and danced as they held up signs saying "thank God for dead soldiers" at the funeral of an army sergeant who was killed by an Iraqi bomb.

For them, it was the perfect way to spread God's word: America was being punished for tolerating homosexuality.


For the hundreds of flag waving bikers who came to this small town in Michigan Saturday to shield the soldier's family, it was disgusting.

"That could be me in that church," said Jackie Sandler whose son Keith is currently serving his second tour of duty in Iraq.

The fringe group of fire and brimstone Baptists from Kansas has been courting controversy for more than 15 years, traveling the country with their hateful signs and slogans.

The Westboro Baptist Church first gained national notoriety when they picked the funeral of Matthew Shepard, a Wyoming student who was murdered in 1998 for being gay.

They have since picketed the funerals of Frank Sinatra and Bill Clinton's mother, celebrated the terrorist attacks of September 11 as an act of God's wrath, and have even targeted Santa Claus and the Ku Klux Klan.

But it was the callousness and cruelty of harassing the grieving families of soldiers at dozens of funerals across the country that has sparked a grassroots movement of bikers determined to drown out the jeers and taunts.

In Flushing, Michigan they turned their leather-clad backs to the five women and held flags and tarps up so that mourners walking past wouldn't see the signs saying "God hates fags," "fag vets" and "America is doomed."

Many found it hard to hide their anger when Margie Phelps, the daughter of Westboro's founder, called out "All this for little old us? Oh, you shouldn't have. I feel so special," before she started singing "the Pope, the Pope, the Pope is on fire. He don't get no water let the heretics burn" in front of a Catholic church.

The glee with which the women hurled insults made John Franklin, 64, sick to his stomach.

"This guy's family deserves a peaceful funeral. It's not right what they're doing," said Franklin, who fought in the Vietnam War. "The only reason they're able to walk around like that is because the veterans fought for their freedom."

While Westboro's congregation remains stable at around 100 people - most of whom are the extended family of founder Fred Phelps - the ranks of the Patriot Guard Riders has swelled to more than 16,000 in just a few months.

The protests come at a time when many Americans think the war in Iraq was a mistake but are anxious to show their support for the troops.

Four states have enacted legislation barring protests at funerals and a dozen more are in the process of introducing bans. But it is unlikely that the bans will stand up to legal challenge.

The group is careful to protest in public spaces and is well aware of its constitutional rights - 11 of Phelps' 13 children are lawyers.

"This nation is poised to trash the first amendment just to stop my preaching," Fred Phelps said in a telephone interview. "I'm kind of honored."

Phelps said he and his congregants are targeting the funerals because God's way of punishing an "evil nation" of "fags and fag enablers" is to "pick off its children."



"I don't have any sympathy for these parents. They're all going to hell," Phelps said. "The family's in pain because they haven't obeyed the Lord God."

The group is so outrageous that some among the extreme-right have speculated that Phelps is a plant aimed at giving the anti-gay movement a bad name, said Mark Potok, the director of the intelligence project at the Southern Poverty Law Center which tracks hate crimes.

"I don't think they have any constituency beyond their own members - even the Nazis aren't interested," he said.

Phelps' virulence and frequently graphic condemnations of anal sex could mask a deeper issue than a radically literal interpretation of the Bible, Potok speculated.

"This man probably thinks more about gay sex than any other person in the United States of America and one can only guess at what that means," he said. "Many of the most homophobic people are deeply afraid that they might be gay."

Attribution: Breitbart.com All Rights Reserved.

I liked the bits about these people being so hateful and intolerant that even the Nazis won't take them. Also the last line about "methinks he protests too much!".

Another headline grabbing hatemonger who has figured out that outrage makes for press and any press is good press for him. One can only picture the special hell reserved for Phelps and his gang of haters... maybe it involves leather clad dominatrix demons wielding something like this:



But I digress. It's Lent, and I'm supposed to being working on my own internal spiritual discipline. I fear I've sinned!

Seriously the best wey, the ONLY way to make people like Fred Phelps go away is to laugh at them. Ridicule them openly, let them call you damned (and I am, according to him, for being Catholic and "condoning faggery"). So, class, let's get started...

Fred Phelps runs a little website with the catchy title of "Godhatesfags.com" along with a sister site, "GodhatesAmerica.com". The AntiDefamation League has put up this handy little website that publishes some of the more virulent homophobic, anti-semite, anti-Catholic, and racist hypberbole from the Westboro Baptist Church (WBC).

This stuff reads like Jack Chick on acid-- though that's an insult to Jack, and even other bastions of intolerance like the American Nazi party, who don't associate with these chumps. I see no reason to repeat it, but I will link to some of it for your titilation and amusement:

WBC on Gays

WBC on Jews

WBC on Other Christians

(I find placing the WBC among the ranks of Christians somewhat repugnant, but that's me)

So kids, if you find this sort of thing brutal, disgusting, and inhumane, do us all a favor and let forth a big loud belly laugh if you bump into the Reverend Fred. Laugh loud and long. Keep on laughing with me until organizations like the WBC are robbed of their power to intimidate.