# coming to a school near you **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [March 9, 2012, 3:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/coming-to-a-school-near-you/615228 "2012-03-09T03:25:57Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 16\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![VinylTurnip](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/b2d939/32.png) [@VinylTurnip](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/VinylTurnip)\ **Post date:** [March 9, 2012, 6:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/coming-to-a-school-near-you/615228/21 "2012-03-09T18:10:51Z")
> [@Blake](#): > > I find your naivete charming. > > It’s like you actually \*believe \*that your child isn’t getting bombarded with a zillion messages every day on moral/ethical/religious issues. Either that, or you believe that free speech directed at children is fine, sol long as the speakers agree with you. > > Either way, it’s charming. You are certainly the type of person who should be raising a child. Fascinating. Pitting the Phelps clan is a traditional crowd-pleaser on this board—low-hanging fruit, maybe, but a sure thing, nonetheless—and yet the OP not only gets heckled, she has you (out of nowhere) questioning her ability to be a parent? What crawled up your ass and died, and is there any chance we could talk to it from now on instead? ---
**Author:** ![Vita\_Beata](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/a9a28c/32.png) [@Vita\_Beata](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Vita_Beata)\ **Post date:** [March 9, 2012, 6:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/coming-to-a-school-near-you/615228/22 "2012-03-09T18:33:15Z")
> [@VinylTurnip](#): > > Fascinating. Pitting the Phelps clan is a traditional crowd-pleaser on this board—low-hanging fruit, maybe, but a sure thing, nonetheless—and yet the OP not only gets heckled, she has you (out of nowhere) questioning her ability to be a parent? > > What crawled up your ass and died, and is there any chance we could talk to it from now on instead? It’s posts like these that keep me reading here. 😃 ---
**Author:** ![Buck\_Godot](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/buck_godot/32/6573_2.png) [@Buck\_Godot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Buck_Godot)\ **Post date:** [March 9, 2012, 8:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/coming-to-a-school-near-you/615228/23 "2012-03-09T20:34:20Z")
> [@wellanuff](#): > > It shouldn’t be too hard for reasonably intelligent, motivated, and creative school administrators, faculty, and parents to turn such an event into an excellent learning opportunity about free speech rights, hate speech, right to protest, freedom to ignore protests, etc., at a level that is age appropriate for your school. Now Timmy, see the protestor there? Notice the crazed eyes, the bulging veins on his forehead, the clump of spittle oozing down his chin down his chin, the incoherant ramblings? This is what happens if you accept a belief without proof or any form of critical thinking. You don’t wont to grow up to be like him do you? That is why you should stay in school. ---
**Author:** ![Lasciel](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/e79b87/32.png) [@Lasciel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lasciel)\ **Post date:** [March 9, 2012, 8:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/coming-to-a-school-near-you/615228/24 "2012-03-09T20:44:34Z")
> [@VinylTurnip](#): > > Fascinating. Pitting the Phelps clan is a traditional crowd-pleaser on this board—low-hanging fruit, maybe, but a sure thing, nonetheless—and yet the OP not only gets heckled, she has you (out of nowhere) questioning her ability to be a parent? > > What crawled up your ass and died, and is there any chance we could talk to it from now on instead? > [@Buck\_Godot](#): > > Now Timmy, see the protestor there? Notice the crazed eyes, the bulging veins on his forehead, the clump of spittle oozing down his chin down his chin, the incoherant ramblings? This is what happens if you accept a belief without proof or any form of critical thinking. You don’t wont to grow up to be like him do you? That is why you should stay in school. This is why I love the Pit. ---
**Author:** ![Lacunae\_Matata](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/8491ac/32.png) [@Lacunae\_Matata](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lacunae_Matata)\ **Post date:** [March 9, 2012, 8:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/coming-to-a-school-near-you/615228/25 "2012-03-09T20:48:09Z")
These poor excuses for humans protested recently outside a school in Chatham County, Georgia (Savannah.) The counter-protest was a beautiful sight: soldiers and cops and students and old folks, civic leaders and bikers, housewives and granddads and drag queens, all united to drown out the stoopit. In a weird way, it was a beautiful lesson in free speech and the value of standing up for civil liberty. My former stepson’s take: “You can’t outlaw stupidity, you can either ignore it or drown it out.” Pretty good life lesson. ---
**Author:** ![Cat\_Whisperer](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cat_whisperer/32/4839_2.png) [@Cat\_Whisperer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cat_Whisperer)\ **Post date:** [March 9, 2012, 8:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/coming-to-a-school-near-you/615228/26 "2012-03-09T20:50:35Z")
If you outlaw stupidity, then only outlaws will be stupid. I think that’s how that goes. ---
**Author:** ![Lemur866](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lemur866/32/434_2.png) [@Lemur866](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lemur866)\ **Post date:** [March 9, 2012, 8:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/coming-to-a-school-near-you/615228/27 "2012-03-09T20:56:45Z")
I find that lots of people have no idea what the Westboro Baptist Church really is. It’s Fred Phelps, his children (the ones he hasn’t disowned), and his grandchildren. That’s it. Remember how they used to picket the gays? Well, Fred found out that when you’re picketing people, and they hate you, it bonds the group together. The more they hate the picketers, the closer the picketers get to each other. But just hating gays isn’t enough. After all, there are plenty of other churches that hate gays. It’s not enough to isolate your family from the fags, the goal is to isolate them from every human contact on the planet. And so you start picketing soldier’s funerals. Because that makes everyone hate you, and that’s the point. You don’t want these kids to associate with people in other right-wing churches, do you? They need to be under your total control. Every human kindness they have ever seen came from another member of the WBC, and every person they’ve ever seen from outside the WBC hates them. And that’s the point. How can the grandchildren leave the church if they have no friends and no human contact outside the church? ---
**Author:** ![bup](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/6bbea6/32.png) [@bup](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bup)\ **Post date:** [March 9, 2012, 9:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/coming-to-a-school-near-you/615228/28 "2012-03-09T21:03:42Z")
> [@Cat\_Whisperer](#): > > If you outlaw stupidity, then only outlaws will be stupid. I \*LOVE \*that! ---
**Author:** ![gamerunknown](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/6bbea6/32.png) [@gamerunknown](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gamerunknown)\ **Post date:** [March 9, 2012, 9:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/coming-to-a-school-near-you/615228/29 "2012-03-09T21:12:22Z")
> [@](#): > > How can the grandchildren leave the church if they have no friends and no human contact outside the church? When an [incredibly sexy](http://wakeywakeynews.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/04/louis-theroux.jpg) documentary maker comes traipsing in and they feel something funny in their nether regions they’ll begin to seek outside contact. At least that’s the impression I got from the two women that left the Church in the second documentary with Louis. ---
**Author:** ![Katriona](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/katriona/32/113_2.png) [@Katriona](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Katriona)\ **Post date:** [March 9, 2012, 10:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/coming-to-a-school-near-you/615228/30 "2012-03-09T22:01:00Z")
This was an interesting article: [http://www.kansascity.com/2011/11/19/3275645/megan-phelps-roper-an-heir-to.html#storylink=misearch](http://www.kansascity.com/2011/11/19/3275645/megan-phelps-roper-an-heir-to.html#storylink=misearch) ---
**Author:** ![pikey\_pete](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/8edcca/32.png) [@pikey\_pete](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pikey_pete)\ **Post date:** [March 10, 2012, 6:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/coming-to-a-school-near-you/615228/31 "2012-03-10T18:51:15Z")
Phuck Phred ---
**Author:** ![YWalker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/y/6f9a4e/32.png) [@YWalker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/YWalker)\ **Post date:** [March 12, 2012, 12:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/coming-to-a-school-near-you/615228/32 "2012-03-12T00:51:14Z")
The Phelps clan are the personification of impotence. A little over a year ago, they sent a small contingent to protest at Elizabeth Edwards’ funeral. I joined up with a group called Line of Love that formed on Facebook that planned to block the mourners from seeing the protesters. As it turned out, the Raleigh police department already did a very good job of protecting the mourners. They gave the Phelps crew a permit to protest on the next block over from the church and cordoned off a small area for them on the far end of the block. It was a relatively long block, so it wasn’t really visible from the church. If you planned your route to the church well, you wouldn’t see them at all. IIRC, there were two adult protesters and 2 kids. They also had their own 2 photographers that stayed in the corral with them to document their attention whoring. They had a number of different signs, and normally held up two at a time. In addition to “Elizabeth Edwards in Hell” and “God Loves Cancer,” they had one with an image of Santa Claus buggering a little boy. The woman started singing a song to the tune of “Santa Claus is Coming to Town,” ending with the line “Santa Claus will take you to Hell.” That was a sweet touch, especially since they were right in front of another church which had children lined up around the block waiting to get in for a Christmas gift distribution. Their whole schtick was designed to push buttons. They were dragging an American flag on the ground (in the rain), and then had the two kids ball it up into a makeshift soccer ball and kick it around to one another. But, all in all, they were just a couple of pathetic losers who were abusing those kids by dragging them into their crap. By corralling them off behind the police barricades (and keeping all other counter protesters on the other side of the street), the police made it possible for us to observe them like animals in the zoo. All they had was the ability to hold up nasty signs and shout out offensive statements. We give them far more power than they deserve by paying attention to them. I wish the media would band together and choose not to publicize their events. They really are just a couple of pathetic losers spewing hatred. If we refuse the attention whores the attention they feed on, maybe they will eventually starve and go away. ---
**Author:** ![Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/left_hand_of_dorkness/32/7156_2.png) [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Left_Hand_of_Dorkness)\ **Post date:** [March 12, 2012, 2:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/coming-to-a-school-near-you/615228/33 "2012-03-12T14:29:38Z")
[My favorite response to the Phelpses](http://phelps-a-thon.com/): the Phelps-a-thon. The ideal, IMO, is for the counter-protest to consist of one unflappably cheerful person with a big “Phelps-a-thon” sign with the url and a short message (maybe, “help the Phelps clan raise money for civil rights–whether they like it or not!”), and a stack of fliers to encourage everyone else to stay away from the counter-protest and instead to join the phelps-a-thon. Big counter-protests encourage them the same way that massive outraged threads encourage Internet trolls. They love seeing how angry they can make everyone. It makes them feel important. Instead, make the counterprotest small, funny, and for a good cause–and let them hold up their stupid signs for themselves to see. ---
**Author:** ![Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e8c25b/32.png) [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Really_Not_All_That_Bright)\ **Post date:** [March 12, 2012, 4:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/coming-to-a-school-near-you/615228/34 "2012-03-12T16:45:14Z")
Personally, I think the most effective small protest would be a couple of small signs that say, “Fred Phelps loves the cock”. ---
**Author:** ![Ludovic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/7ab992/32.png) [@Ludovic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ludovic)\ **Post date:** [March 12, 2012, 4:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/coming-to-a-school-near-you/615228/35 "2012-03-12T16:57:21Z")
But in order to not offend any sensibilities, it would have to have a picture of a chicken. In bed with Phelps. ---
**Author:** ![Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e8c25b/32.png) [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Really_Not_All_That_Bright)\ **Post date:** [March 12, 2012, 5:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/coming-to-a-school-near-you/615228/36 "2012-03-12T17:04:23Z")
It’d have to be a rooster. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/coming-to-a-school-near-you/615228.md?page=1)