Fred Phelps does it again! New flyer about Pope in Hell

The BBQ Pit
81

Going on what’s documented in Addicted to Hate (which is not the most unbiased source I’ve ever seen) it seems that Phelps mostly gets his money from his family law practice, which specializes in frivolous lawsuits designed to get out-of-court STFU settlements. He himself has been disbarred from both state and federal practice, but he forced all of his children and their romantic partners into law school, so he has a whole group of subservient lawyers to carry on his legacy.

My impression, also from reading the same source, is that he is probably not a closet case. He’s more of a extreme sadist, and takes great joy in inflicting pain on anyone he can get his hands on. He was unbelievably cruel to his kids, self-indulgent and self-absorbed to the extreme, and insisted that the world and religion revolve around him. He also appear to revel in the pain and disruption his many frivilous lawsuits caused the innocent defendants. If he had homosexual inclinations, he probably would have insisted on his god-given right to fuck any one he chose rather than cover it up.

mischievous

82

Oh, and speaking of money, it appears that his house and his law firm all are run out of the building declared his “church”, and thus are largely rent free and tax-exempt.

83

I wish that were completely true. But those people are dangerous. They complain about being “attacked” yet have themselves used physical violence. In one case they advanced onto the lawn of the church I was a member of, and “took down” the minister. They accused him of threatening them with the hammer he was using to pound in a yard sign on church property. As the Rev. Weeks later told me "I thought I was going to die with two tons of Phelps on top of me. The Phelps filed assault charges against him, so he had to counter-file.

Whether we like it or not we have to pay attention to them. It is too easy for situations to develop. I wouldn’t be surprised if they went postal one day, maybe after Fred dies and some mocker on the other side hurls an insult of their own.

84

Many of the family live in a “compound” fenced in all around. I drive by it often. But there’s one house in the block that doesn’t belong to them. It’s wedged in between the main church building and another Phelps house on the corner. It’s funny to see how the tall fence makes a detour behind it.

They once tried to get a family pickup off the tax rolls because they use it, amongst other things, to haul their picket signs from place to place. Said it sould be exempt because it was a vehicle used for “religious purposes”. It didn’t wash. Oh, and the swimming pool in the compound is for baptisms. Uh huh.

85

Phelps’s flyers are always like that. I get the feeling that he lays them out with scotch tape, sends it through a vintage Mimeograph, and then makes a PDF out of it. Modern desktop publishing gives documents a “professional” air that generates distrust among the loons; if it’s laid out shoddily and poorly photocopied, it MUST be true!

Meanwhile, I can’t decide which is a better band name–The Fag Priests, or The Dyke Nuns.

86

It could also be a really interesting fundraising basketball game. (I bet Fred’s Tarts & Vicars parties are the hit of the Westboro Social Season.)

The fenced in compound is classic cultleader mind control: limit contact with the group outside, make all contact with other members and uniformly dedicated, etc… I semi-understand how he keeps the kids in line, and the grandkids have been reared from the cradle to see gays as demons, but how in the hell does he control the in-laws? (And who in their right mind would marry into the Phelps family? He makes Ervil LeBaron seem normal.)

It will be interesting (and wonderful) to see just what happens when Phelps finally does the world a favor and dies. Will gays picket his funeral, or classily extend condolences? Will one of his insane children become the new head or will there be a diaspora? Will any of the members (who are mostly but not all blood relatives of Phelps) have a moment of “Alec Guinness from Bridge On the River Kwai ‘My god, what have I done?’ Clarity” or otherwise just start screaming?

And as puzzling as the cult’s finances is the fact that they’ve never been the victim of violence. I’m surprised some AIDS widow/er or other picketed party hasn’t long since just beaten the shit out of one of them. I honestly don’t think the most Republican judge in the nation would give them more than a token sentence and I’m positive that gays all over the nation would pass the hat for the defense fund. (It would be great if a David Geffen or Elton John would just donate a million or two to generally harass and destroy Clan Phelps by making them the victims of neverending lawsuits instead of the perpetrators.)

87

Because Fred and Co are all lawyers, they’d sue the shit out of anyone who tried, not to mention that he and his sons are pretty big guys themselves.

88

They do claim to have been the victims of violence, alleging vandalism and shots at the compound. At one picket, years ago, several went to the hospital after an incidents at a local restaurant, when they say the owner sent some people after them, and they will tell you how they were injured, but not show the hospital reports. And there was a recent incident too, that I don’t know much about, in which someone threw something at them, I’d have to go dig it out of the paper. In New York once someone threw some liquid on Fred that he said burned his eyes, but that was a while back. But I think their claims to be the victims of constant, concentrated attack are bull. Over twelve years ago, when this whole picketing thing started, I figured it was only a matter of time before someone did a major drive-by, but it’s never happened.

89

Well, there goes any last chance I might sleep tonight.

It’s 3:30am here in Northern California, I normally would have been asleep by midnight but for some reason I started reading the previously linked Addicted To Hate around 11pm and I’ve just finished the damn thing.

I’m an emotional wreck now. I have every reason to believe that the story is true, as it seems to explain the man today (and his flock).

What we are dealing with here is a sociopath.

Apparently there was possibly more than a decade of meth-use, only ending when he nearly died of an overdose. That was when his kids were young. He’s clean now, but the damage was done.

His meek wife was a good enough mother to finally tell him he wasn’t allowed to start beating his children until they were at least one year old.

Every one of his children were beaten regularly, not just spankings but real beatings that sometimes only ended when the child went into shock.

His income for many years came from his children selling candy, which he apparently scammed large quantities from a variety of companies by buying a small amount to prove he would pay, then ordering very large quantities and never paying. I’m sure with the arsenal of lawyers in his flock he has found ways to keep the money flowing through them.

His violence finally ended when, while beating his wife, he chased her out of the room and onto the landing to find three of his now-adult children at the bottom of the stairs, one of them brandishing a knife from the kitchen. This was after several of his older kids had left the flock. He apparently realized that he would be unable to continue bullying his family or they would eventually either leave or kill him.

So he found someone else to aim his anger at: everybody. Every company he worked for got sued. Every judge who dealt with his cases got his name dragged through the mud, until he was disbarred. When he could no longer sue at will, he found his hatred for gays and anyone who even remotely defends them to be the best outlet.

I had to do it. I had to go to his site and find the Jerry Falwell .pdf. Apparently Jerry is going to hell because he disagreed with Phelps’ on the subject of “Hate the sin, love the sinner.” Phelps’ argument is that God hates, God hates sinners, and God Hates Fags, and anyone who says otherwise is going to hell.

I’m an incessant “info-maniac” - I devour information constantly. The Internet feeds my insatiable appetite. I’ve seen and read many, many disgusting things because of my habit of Googling with SafeSearch off. I don’t think I’ve ever been so profoundly disgusted by anything I’ve read before. The only beacon of light in the whole thing was the story of the successful escapees, the two sons who have become relatively normal adults. Two daughters are also free, one may be OK (very little about her in the story), one is profoundly damaged.

After all this, I’ve come to the conclusion that Fred Phelps is not worthy of hatred. He thrives on hatred, and has an enormous martyr complex, so hating him will only feed him.

He should be ignored.

Luckily I was able to find this picture which I’ve seen on Fark before - the pic is even more comical after reading Addicted To Hate.

4:15am Pacific Time. CyberHippy Signing Off… :frowning:

90

I’m tempted to wish that ‘do unto others’ will also turn out to work in reverse; that whatever you do/wish for unto others will be visited in equal measure upon yourself, although of course that would pretty much put me in the shitter for wishing the above, so I’ll just say I hope we’re all treated with undeserved mercy.

91

Wow. I know the Dope rules about wishing death, or encouraging “extreme measures” but damn.

That’s all I can say without getting barred forever.

92

Well, if everyone Fred says is going to hell really does, then at least he’ll have lots of company when he gets there.

93

I think when he finally does pass, that family WILL shatter. I don’t think they can continue without him-from what I gather, there’s a lot of rumors going around-his eldest daughter’s “adopted” son is actually her illegitimate biological child, for example. I can just see the whole thing collapsing.

That man is a nightmare, and actually, I don’t HATE his children all that much for protesting along with him-look at what they had to endure growing up. Eating rotten curds and whey while Dad ate cheeseburgers and apple pie, having to sell candy door to door on Christmas Day as the family’s only source of income, being forced to run marathons at age three, being beaten nightly with a mattock, etc. And having to live with that creature…ugh.

94

There is a school of thought that says it does come back on them. There is a “threefold rule” (or is it seven?) that says whatever you do comes back three (or 7?) times. The simpler version is the well known “what goes around, comes around”.

95

It’s nothing personal. He was just returning a favor for Stewie Griffin.

96

Kathy is his oldest daughter, Guin, it’s Marge, the second daughter, who has the son rumored to be her own.

I remember Kathy, she was in the same grade as I in junior high school. She was a nice girl who seemed desperate for a friend, but wasn’t allowed to socialize with us.

97

If Junior had a particle of spine, the old man would have been taking all his future meals through a straw.

98

stands up

“My name is Dante, and I had no idea that Fred Phelps existed until today.”

Whew! That’s a load off. Seriously, I had never heard of this guy until I opened this thread. For the record, the underside of my rock is very well furnished, and quite comfortable, thank you.

Phelps makes this hardcore atheist wish for an afterlife, just so he can burn in it.

runs off to do more reading about Phelps, Jack Chick, and Mr. Rogers

99

Oh that’s so sad. I’ve heard he used to starve her because she was a little overweight, and that nowadays she’s on wellfare and in therapy and has a lot of problems. That poor, poor thing.

100

Doesn’t Topeka have Child Protective Services?

In any event, as hateful as Fred Phelps is, I can’t get that worked up about him, though he is fascinating in a voyeuristic, car-wreck kind of way. Despite his hateful behavior at the Sheppard funeral and elsewhere he doesn’t seem nearly the threat to gays that, say, the DOMA and its supporters on Capitol Hill are. In fact, he may actually be doing gays a backwards favor, by showing the true ugliness of anti-gay bigotry. Their was an article in the Washington Post a few months ago where Phelps and his brood came to an oklahoma town to protest something or other and even the conservative anti-gay christians were telling them to shove off. One said “Leave our homos alone.” Not the most enlightened sentiment, but maybe it’s a step in the right direction. Phelps seems like more of a threat to the peace of Topeka, and I hope the citizens there do something about him and help his poor kids, especially the small ones.

Thanks Guinastasia for posting that article. I’d always wondered about the back story. I guess he isn’t a self-loathing repressed gay man after all, but rather someone filled with a boundless ocean of narcisism and hate. Gays are just the most convenient target. In a different time and place he’d be rounding up Jews, lynching Blacks, or arresting class enemies of the Soviet State.

In any event, if I see any of them again–they come to D.C. occasionaly to protest gay pride day–rather than denounce them, I’ll try to approach them and say " Hey, you don’t have to live like this."