Fred "God hates fags" Phelps plans to boycott Madelyn Dunham--the President-Elect's grandmother--at her homecoming. Wow. I have nothing to say except props to Pam for the link.
« Especially the blacks and the gays--and the black gays...or the gay blacks... | Main | America officially "working as intended" » What can men do against such reckless hate...10 Nov 2008 03:22 pm Comments (41)
Okay so now you have me wanting to watch all three LOTR movies again. (Which is not that hard a temptation for me to give into.) Fred Phelps' internal logic is one of those things where I just don't get it -- I make allowances for a lot of idiotic attitudes I disagree with in terms of what drives them, but his goes beyond. He makes Lyndon LaRouche look sane. 
How the heck does that scum even afford airfare? I swear, that jackass just has nothing better to do than pretend to he has relevance.
One of our state papers ran a picture that said it all when Phelps decided to bring his venom to the Bluegrass. His granddaughter Jael, in little pink sneakers, listening to him yell, while standing on an American flag. Fortunately, I'd guess the Secret Service can and will keep him a mile or more away.
I trust that God is keeping track of all Phelps' heinous crimes and plans to bring them up with him at the appropriate time.
Yes, props to TNC for an LotR reference that is recognizably from the book: "It is said that the Hornburg has never fallen to assault," said Théoden; "but now my heart is doubtful. How shall any tower withstand such numbers and such reckless hate?" Yes, watch the movies again, but reread the book, too!
Fred Phelps is so deep in the closet that he passes Narnia on the way to work.
What's that saying? "All that's required for evil to succeed is for good men to do nothing." Well, maybe just burn his picket-signs.
Is it wrong of me to wish there was some secret squad of gay ninjas that could take care of this shit? Swoop in behind a rainbow smoke screen, hit 'em with a few well placed blowdarts and be gone before the smoke clears. It would be so delicious.
Mockery is the only thing that will work. www.godhatesshrimp.com
There is one and only one thing that Phelps wants: attention. While it's usually bad advice to ignore a problem in the home that it goes away, Phelps is one of the rare exceptions to the rule. Why do you think that he went from protesting gay funerals to protesting military funerals? It was because the press had gotten bored of his schtick, so he needed to up the outrange in order to regain the spotlight. Turn the spotlight off and starve him of media attention and he'll he'll shrivel up and blow away. The best possible punishment for an attention whore like Phelps is a well-earned obscurity.
Yeah, dude is good for the gays. He came to my relatively conservative college campus a few years back. After an hour. I saw homophobic fraternity guys ready to go to war for gay marriage.
Ah, Fred Phelps...I am sorely tempted to picket the old, rotten, dried-out, self-hating punk's funeral when his turn comes around...
If the service is in Hawaii I'm torn between visions of it being too expensive to go, and visions of people solemnly signing up for the all-expenses paid vigil, then wandering off to the beach. Mike for the win, though I think she's already pretty revered.
dudes -- not just boycott, like, refuse to 'attend', as if his extremely crazy ass would be wanted anywhere in the same zip code. He means to PICKET it. God doesn't even hate Fred Phelps, but maybe I do.
I think that Phelps and his clan have actually done a real service to the GLBT community. Contrary to his stated goal, I think his group's protests serve as a fun-house mirror to religious and conservative folks, showing them the logical end result of their anti-gay stances. More than once I've heard, "Yeah, gay people kind of freak me, but that Phelps guy is on crack." Very few people wants to be seen on the same side of any issue as Westboro Baptist. As for how they afford all of the protests? A whole bunch of the Phelps clan are practicing lawyers. They intentionally goad people into violating their protest rights and then sue them.
I hate this guy. I mean I really really hate this guy after spending 4 and a half years in the service I believe that they don't get much lower than this guy. We've all heard of the devil quoting scripture for his own ends. If all the members of the Westboro baptist church suddenly died in a plane crash and were eaten by maggots I wouldn't feel sorry at all. However, this is America. We elected Obama on Tuesday almost 1 week ago. Tuesday was a proud day in America. When Obama's grandmother is laid to rest and her grandson the first African American President Elect of the United States gives the eulogy that will be another proud day in America. Although it will be a said day for President Obama, no amount of self-rightous hate speech will be able to spoil it. I hope he walks right up to them at the funeral and says "God Bless You." This is America. I personally swore an Oath to support and defend the Constitution. That constitution gives these people the right to protest. Hate is too weak of a word to cover what I feel when I see these people protest the funerals of people of my friends and others.
Even I know you don't fuck with a black man's grandmother. Kim Jong Il wouldn't try that shit! Just remember the Simpsons, Fred--he gets three secret murders. Not that you rate it
@EdTheRed: Picket this guy's funeral? He's not worth it. The best revenge would be to not acknowledge he ever existed.
There may come a day when the courage of men fails and all bonds of fellowship are broken, but not this day! (Do I win a geek prize?)
don't mean to threadjack, but the insanity is unfortunately alive and well in congress too: Wahington Post: Georgia congressman warns of Obama dictatorship WASHINGTON -- A Republican congressman from Georgia said Monday he fears that President-elect Obama will establish a Gestapo-like security force to impose a Marxist or fascist dictatorship. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/11/10/AR2008111002447.html
Muzzy, um, shows that social studies teachers have failed, alas (and I am one). Doesn't that silly fool Georgian (but then, as a Florida Gator, I repeat myself!)realize that Marxism and Fascism are two competing and incompatible philosophies?
Arrgh. Just read that link from Muzzy. Another stupid example of a lack of historical knowledge. Hitler wasn't elected to ANYTHING! And the damn piece doesn't even correct that!
Dudes, there is a wing of the Hell's Angels designed specifically to counter Phelps. It's called the "Patriot Guard," and every time Phelps's inbred army starts yapping, they rev up their motorcycles. I hope they're there with the Secret Service.
I believe his people were at my little sister's graduation. They had all these "God hates America" signs. However if it was them they were relatively restrained. Lots of "God hates this, that, and the other thing" signs, but no noise or other disturbance. Related to some things mentioned I've seen anti-gay people who hate him more than anyone. They do feel he "makes us all look bad."
Here is the true measure of Phred Felch's phucked upedness: He started out as a civil rights lawyer (I suspect his interest in practicing began to wane as it ceased to be an unusual, death-threat intensive, career.) Now we're going to be treated to the sight of the S.S. stepping on this sick S.O.B's head when he protests the funeral of the first black president's grandmother. But I agree that he needs to be homophobia's poster troglodyte. Is it wrong of me to wish there was some secret squad of gay ninjas that could take care of this shit? No. SA2SQ
If we can set up cages for the RNC and DNC, I think we can set up an especially small one for a funeral that the president elect will be attending, right? After all, Bush is still president and his executive orders stand at least until Jan 20th, right? Cage the fuckers.
Why give this guy any space? He doesn't matter, and you could write a post every day about some new offensive thing he's done if you wanted to.
"Boycott" means to refuse to do business with. Fix the typo, delete this comment, whatever. AL
And this person is relevant how? You would boycott somebody's grandmama's funeral? Dude MUST be looking for a beatdown. Nobody fucks with another's grandmama in life or in death.
Don't worry, scumbag. No one's going to come to yours because no one will care when you die.
These scum have been boycotting the funerals of soldiers for the last few years. I can't wait to see the secret service guys get a crack at them. Hard, preferably across the head.
These are the same people that threatened to protest at the funeral for those AMISH kids who were slaughtered in Pennsylvania a year or so ago, if a local radio station did not give them an hour of free publicity to just promote themselves and their hatred. I. Am. Sorry. But I find it very, very easy to believe that Fred Phelps and his congregants are going to burn in hell for all eternity. Note that I didn't say they should or that I even wish they would. All I'm saying is that, given their very un-Christian actions and their total unwillingness to obey that most basic of Christ's commands to "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you", that they will indeed suffer in hell for all eternity. Kinda sad, but there is little question in my mind about this.
They're an inbred family of real-life trolls. They want to have the shit beaten out of them, so that they can file suit and pay for the next outrage. If the gay ninjas put enough dynamite under their double-wide 'church' and blow it to matchsticks while they're all in Hawaii, that's fine by me.
They are real uniters in a way though. No matter how far-right or far-left I've never met anyone who doesn't find Phelps obnoxious and horrible. I'm even including some extremely homophobic people, the type who thought Matthew Shepard "kind-of had it coming."
I'm willing to bet that more haters grow some self-awareness after hearing Phelps than Phelps ever converts to his cause.
Somehow I have a feeling that the Secret Service isn't going to put up with that shit. If they show up, they'll be shuffled off to some corner where they do not have a clear view of the President-elect. Or probably the funeral itself.
JDinBalt sez, "I. Am. Sorry. But I find it very, very easy to believe that Fred Phelps and his congregants are going to burn in hell for all eternity. Note that I didn't say they should or that I even wish they would. All I'm saying is that, given their very un-Christian actions and their total unwillingness to obey that most basic of Christ's commands to "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you", that they will indeed suffer in hell for all eternity. Kinda sad, but there is little question in my mind about this." I think you have your theology twisted. First, if you are going to quote Mark 12:31 (which you paraphrased), then you must quote it's companion, Mark 12:30. Together they read, "First, you should love the Lord thy God with all your heart, all your soul and all your might, Second, you should love your neighbor as yourself" These two commandments sum up all of the law that Moses gave the Jews and these two verses find their origins in Deut 6:5 and Lev 19:18, showing that true obedience to God comes in getting both the vertical (person to God) and horizontal (person to person) relationships right. If you are loving your neighbor as yourself, then are not bearing false witnessa against him, you are not stealing from him, killing him, etc. Similarly, if you loving God with all your might, you do not serve false Gods, you honor the Sabbath, etc. As for what determines our place in eternity, that depends on what decisions you make in this life. C.S. Lewis put it nicely in "Mere Christianity" -- "we basically spend our lives becoming heavenly creatures or hellish ones". Where you wind up depends on a simple choice -- accept Christ as your personal savior or reject Him. But if you accept Christ as Lord and Savior over your life, then you basically give up your right to claim your rights and agree to follow and serve Christ. So what does Christ say about homosexuality? If He is what He said He was, then He and His Father were one, and God says in Lev 18:22: "Do not lie with a man as one lies with a woman; that is detestable." Now it is not my place to judge another person's choices (that is Christ's job), but clearly if I am following Christ, I am not condoning homosexuality (hence the rift in the Episcopal church). Note this does not mean that I deny anyone's civil rights, or otherwise oppress them, I simply view that action as immoral and should, as the Bible says, "Speak the truth with love and respect". The thing is, I am not only opposed to gay marriage, but to the concept of straight marriage in today's society, as the institution of marriage is based not on culture, but on God's word (Gen 2). Rather, I would have the relationship described as marriage returned back to the perview of the church and all civil unions (be they gay or straight) be called just that, with all the rights to community property and inheritance that civil unions enjoy. I apologize for the long post. Thanks for reading this if you're still here.
It seems like a counter-picket could be set up fairly easily, if some group were inclined. Get bigger signs than Phelps, and stand around him with huge signs that say "God is Love" or "Rest in Peace" or whatever is funeral-appropriate. Hold your signs so his can't be seen, and if he talks, sing louder. He must not have an organized opposition, if this doesn't happen. But I know I don't want to spend much of my life following what Fred Phelps does, so I understand that other people don't, either.
The previous poster Andrew had it right: Ignore him. Attention is oxygen for him. Let the authorities keep him away from the people gathered to attend the funeral. Let him stand on the sidewalk with his pathetic ragtag followers, yelling into the empty air, alone. He has a form of insanity that makes him do extremely offensive things, and he has to be kept away from people mourning a loss, but otherwise, he's just a sad, sick man.
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I think the reverend is actually a force for good. By presenting such a redonkulous unconscious parody of hate, he usually ends up bringing out the best in the communities he inflicts himself on.
Posted by Zak | November 10, 2008 3:31 PM