Bumping this thread because today was supposed to be the first ¨Love Crusade¨at a military funeral:
¨ Thank God for IEDs (Improvised Explosive Devices) - Killing Americans in Strange Lands - WBC to picket Dover Air Force Base - 8 a.m. Monday July 11 - in religious protest & warning: “God is not mocked!” It is dishonorable - not honorable - when God kills a soldier via IED - like the IED militant fags used to bomb Westboro Baptist Church, in collusion with the governments and populations of the U.S.A. ¨ Quoted from you-know-where.
Tomorrow they´re planning another. Does anyone know if these (Insert your own adjectives. Be descriptive) ¨people¨ actually showed up, and if so if any of them survived?
I dunno about Dover AFB, but I do know Phelps and company showed up at a serviceman’s funeral in Massachusetts not too long ago and got shunted aside by police and pretty much ignored. He sure didn’t get the sort of media glow he wants to bask in. Nor did he get assaulted so he could play the martyr. As far as I recall he slunk away without picketing a second serviceman’s funeral he’d planned to demonstrate at.
I could be wrong on the details, though, since this is strictly from memory. I’m sure other Bay State Dopers will correct me if so.
I don’t know about the details, but I do remember catching this on the local evening news. It was nothing too major, just one or two camera shots of the pickets along with a quick statement from one of Phred’s daughters–I think it was either Marge or Shirley.
What struck me about it was just how . . . normal . . . she looked and sounded. Her content about the dead serviceman in hell was crazy, but she spoke it in a normal voice while holding a sign about how great 9/11 was. No frothing at the mouth, no wild eyes. I wish my college professors could have had that poise.
I’ve been following the site for years, and the sheer lunacy of their vitriol has always just weirded me out. But nothing on that site weirded me out half as much as watching this woman on TV calmly espouse her screwball views in a polite tone of voice while I thought “I could be grocery shopping right beside her and not sense anything dangerous or even off-putting.”
So many of them are lawyers and MBA’s. Fred himself used to be a civil rights lawyer. I just find myself thinking “How could people this smart go so far wrong?” Even allowing for the fact that book smarts and life smarts are two different things, surely more than a handful of children should have been able to break away from this monster.
I know why, of course: Given the terrible level of beatings, verbal abuse, enforced solitude, and God knows what else, it’s like training the elephant by tying it to the stake. The children and grandchildren of Fred Phelps are walking talking studies in learned helplessness. But it’s still incredible to see it right in front of you on the TV.
My suggestion: When Fred dies, gay clubs across the nation should all have major fund-raising parties. Donate the money to AIDS Outreach in the name of Fred Phelps.
He’d probably sue. (Not that it would have merit, but it can still get expensive and irritating.)
I can’t believe more members of his family haven’t been disbarred for all their nuisance suits. I’m also surprised that nobody in his family has had the living shit beaten out of them (other than by Fred), especially now that they’re adding military funerals to the repertoire. (Actually, Fred claims that gays have brutalized, terrorized, molested and attempted to rape members of his clan on unspecified dates, but strangely no police reports were ever filed.)
Back when I first encountered Fred Phelps and read that Addicted to Hate book-in-a-court-document, I felt about the same way you did. Then, while searching for additional Phelps-related material, I found and read a story where that exact scenario happened (well, the person in the story was named something different, but it was quite clear to whom the story was referring – I think the name was Phil Freps or something like that) and it was wonderfully cathartic. I could probably dig up the link if anybody is interested.
As far as fundraising goes, the Topeka Aids Project(TAP) has an annual gala . There’s dinner, entertainment, a silent auction, and so on.
Two years ago they decided on another way to raise money. Phred and Co. always showed up beforehand and picketed outside the venue where the gala is held. So fliers were mailed out soliciting donations for every minute the picketers stood outside. Quite a number of people signed up, including myself.
Then, for the first time ever, the Phelps didn’t picket the event! Letters were sent to donors such as myself offering to return money already given. I just told them to keep what I’d sent, and I’ll bet others did too. But the offer was classy.
