I'm usually a non-violent person, but I would really like to punch Fred Phelps, hard, in the throat. Or worse. If there is ever a guy who needs a severe ass-whipping, Fred Phelps is your guy. What a freaking slime mold.
Chicago Tribune | Lawmakers rush to blunt anti-gay church Army Pfc. Amy Duerksen was 19 when she died last month in a U.S. military surgical hospital in Baghdad, three days after being shot in an accident. By all the accounts of her family, friends and superiors, she had been a model soldier, an impassioned patriot and a deeply devout Christian.But none of that mattered to the six members of the Westboro Baptist Church who drove all night from their headquarters in Topeka, Kan., to show up here outside Duerksen's March 17 funeral waving hateful placards.
“You're Going to Hell,” read one of the hand-lettered signs. “Fag Vets, God Hates You,” read another. “Your Pastor is a Whore,” said a third.
“This family got what it deserved for sending their daughter to defend this evil nation,” said Elizabeth Phelps, 43, who was leading the small knot of protesters. “They ought to thank us for being here to tell the world the truth.”
For nearly a year, members of the virulently anti-gay Westboro Church have been crisscrossing the nation, holding more than 100 similar, confounding protests outside the funerals of U.S. soldiers killed in Iraq. By their logic, a wrathful God is punishing America for tolerating homosexuality by killing U.S. soldiers in Iraq. Every funeral, they believe, is a warning from God to repent.
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Ultimately, legal experts predict, the laws attempting to restrict funeral protests will end up enriching Rev. Fred Phelps, the 76-year-old leader of Westboro Baptist, because of the damages he can win if he prevails in court. “That's the great irony of these bills--they are going to put the citizens of these states in the position of paying money to Fred Phelps,” said Charlie Mitchell, state legislative counsel for the American Civil Liberties Union, which is monitoring the funeral-protest laws but has yet to decide whether to intervene with lawsuits. Lawsuits are precisely what Phelps says he plans--and he relishes the publicity that the laws are bringing to his church. “All these legislatures and Congress all riled up--you got to love it,” Phelps said in a telephone interview. “You can't buy this kind of attention to our message.”
One would almost think that the Republicans responsible for the impending new legislation banning Phelps are actually working in concert with him, so as to fund his vileness. Or else, they are just stupid, which is probably the truth.
You hear about these protesters, but when you actually see them and hear what they are doing, it is more than protesting,“ said Rep. Michael Rogers (R-Mich.), who is sponsoring a bill in the House to restrict protests outside national cemeteries. ”They are jeering and taunting and harassing these families and it is pretty vile. We have to do something to let these families grieve peaceably and give them dignity.“
Tags: Christian_Taliban, /civil_liberties
