To nuke that state or not nuke that state? On the one hand, we have Phred Phelch. On the other, we have Cozy burgers.
Hey kids, can you spell conundrum?
I had never heard of his group until they came to protest here at NASA following the Columbia disaster. The police had to come protect them. I absolutely could not believe that these morons came all the way from Kansas to carry signs that read ‘God blew up the space shuttle’ and of course, ‘God hates fags’ here in the heart of the Johnson Space Center while other folks were delivering flowers to the gated entrance. I cannot believe they were not attacked outright and am proud of my neighbors for not doing so. I was particularly confused about the relationship between the ‘fags’ and the space shuttle. There was no relationship- it didn’t matter to them.
How is it that no (other) crazy person has not picked some of these morons off already? I heard someone else (here) say that if heaven is full of people like you, I’d rather go to hell. So true.
Tell me, how can a cancer get cancer?
Wouldn’t it be wonderfullly ironic if he was suffering from AIDS?
He used to picket my aunt’s church, too, although I don’t recall if it’s St. David’s or not, Baker. It’s an Episcopal church near White Lakes mall, but the name escapes me right now. She used to say it took all her will power not to jump the curb and mow him down!
He did picket at my brother’s college graduation (apparently the College of Arts and Sciences at Kansas State is some kinda big threat), and when Bro interned at the KBI, they had his infamous fax machine in custody for awhile. At the time they confiscated it, a very small grandchild was happily faxing hate mail to the DA’s office while ever-so-sweetly lisping to the KBI folks about how they were all going to Hell.
I also remember while I was still at K-State, the campus radio station interviewed him, and it was a complete trainwreck. He only agreed to allow call-in questions if they were “approved,” so of course the people who called in were pretending to go along with him just long enough to get on the air. At that time, one of hs favorite phrases was, “I have 13 children, and 11 of them still love me,” which brought up rumors of one of both of the 2 that didn’t might possibly be gay, hence his rabid stance, and that was the focus of a lot of the questions, which he declined to answer.
Look people, Phelps is clearly insane. I mean, the man is clearly mentally ill. He’s really no different than the guys on streetcorners ranting about the trilateral commision or how the FBI is using UFOs to track them. His schizophrenia has chosen gays as the focus of his obsession rather than the government or aliens, but it is clearly the same thing. He just seems to have people willing to clean him up and not let him wander the streets like the other schizophrenics.
Seriously, the man deserves pity. I know he says and does hateful things, but so do people who believe aliens are controlling them.
Yeah, but your average street babbler doesn’t usually get his entire family to travel halfway accross the country to help him babble about UFOs. Or build websites devoted to said UFOs.
Maybe it just doesn’t make the national news, but I don’t remember the last time I heard about a streetcorner schizophrenic organizing road trips to disrupt the funerals of beloved children’s television figures, or people beaten to death for being gay or the crew of the space shuttle. Streetcorner schizos also tend not to reproduce and spread their disease to multiple generations.
Pity Phelps? He doesn’t deserve pity. He deserves scorn, derision and disgust, not to mention opposition everywhere he goes, and I wouldn’t be upset in the least to learn that he and his entire family burned to death in a bus on one of their outings. Phelps is the kind of person who makes me wish I believed in God, just so that one day Phelps and God would meet and God would personally dunk him in a lake of boiling shit.
I’ve seen analyses where Fred doesn’t really picket because of homosexuality, he just uses it for something else. Of course, now I can’t remember what I read that told me what that something else was… 
Esprix
I’m proud to be one of the many who have been picketed by that group. Twice, even. I was working on a national tour of a Broadway show in 2001 and another show in 2002 that went through Topeka. I went to talk to some of them before the show, and they actually spit on me. Since I had to leave Topeka that night, I did not kill the spitter. These people make me sick. Words can not describe seeing a young girl holding a sign reading “God hates Fags.” Makes me want to puke.
Katriona, you were probably thinking of St. Phillip’s.
lightingtool, a few years ago a production of A Chorus Line went through Topeka. Me and three others counter-picketed the Phelps clan. About ten minutes before the show was to begin we broke it off because two of us(not me) had tickets and had to go inside. Me and the other girl stood under the marquee of the Performing Arts Center, waiting for either the rain to stop or the Phelp’s to go away. As we waited two guys came out and started taking pictures of the WBC. One of these guys was the company manager of the show, and he asked us if we were going to see it. We said no, we didn’t have tickets, and he said he could get them for us. Then we said we didn’t have the money(it wasn’t a cheap show). He replied “No, I meant I’ll give you the tickets!” So we got good seats on the main floor. Phred was good for something that day.
snort That’s actually pretty funny. Hehehehe…an elephant’s butt!
No, they’re not gay. They were just abused severely.
Two of his daughters also left the family-one even went so far as to change her name.
Re: the Addicted to Hate website.
My God. I knew he was horrible, but not that horrible. I mean, just the stuff that can be verified by outsiders is horrid, but the stuff some of his kids are saying…
If anyone ever needed prayer, it must be Fred Phelps.
Thanks for the link Super Gnat. I think… (it was an extremely disturbing read)
My deepest and sincerest wish is that this man dies as soon as possible. (Not a death threat, just hoping that ‘fate’ possesses the same moral indignation that we all do.)
I told my wife about this thread, and she reminded me of some of the more amusing details of our encounter with Phelps. Specifically, if you disagreed with them in any way, they assumed you were gay. They were, in fact, utterly convinced that my wife was a gay man, and it was more or less impossible for her to dissuade them. They also had a favorite rebuttal to every argument (more of a codicil, really, since they used it more or less as a closing salutation on every respose they wrote.) To wit:
“Your god is your rectum.”
(No, not “your rectum is your god.” That would make too much sense.)
Even back then, before the modern “any prominent funeral, any time” strategy, they were clearly obsessed with media exposure. Hockenbarger would incessantly ask people if they had caught his appearances on “Oprah” and “20/20”. After a while, people started telling him, “Your god is your TV camera.”
Hockenbarger, BTW, said that every night he prays that when he dies, God will let him torture his enemies in hell.
My wife also raised the point that given the religious diversity of the SDMB, surely somebody would say a good word about Phelps, if only “he’s preaching the truth, but he’s going about it the wrong way.” I actually have a different question. If it’s a good thing for people to be tortured in hell, isn’t it the duty of good fundies to actually do the torturing? Could we have a show of hands? Attendance was poor at the “did this Jew get what she deserved” poll, so I don’t expect much this time around.
Speaking of weird encounters, I should mention that I peed next to Behe yesterday.
[hijack]Great, Ben, but I need to ask you two important questions:
(1) Who’s Behe?
(2) Did you aim for the back of the urinal or the water?
[/hijack]
Why isn’t this man brought up on charges of instigating hate crimes? Or being a general ass.
This is meant as no offense to decent christians, but why hasn’t Phred condemned Jesus as being gay, yet? Jesus lived at home with his parents until he was 33, never dated and hung out with a bunch of guys who ( presumably) were not married and just as old as he is and they had fabulous dinners.
It’s not too much of a stretch.
**
He’s a famous creationist (koff koff- I mean “Intelligent Design proponent”) who came to speak at my university.
I don’t remember, but at least I didn’t aim at Behe!
>Was this the same forum? I was referring to BELIEF-L.
(Sorry for replying late…)
I don’t remember, it’s been years. It was an email list some very idealistic soul created to promote a discussion between fundamentalist Christians and GLBT people. Hockenbarger and Ben Phelps hijacked the thread and made it a very unpleasant place. As I recall, we had quite a few wonderful non-gay Christians who argued with them just as hotly as we did.
IIRC, Ben Phelps used to bring up the AIDS card every damn time he’d slag homosexuals. When I pointed out that lesbians have the lowest rate of AIDS than any other group defined by sexual orientation, he said “just wait, your time is coming.”
Still waiting, dude.