Excuses are just that.
Everything we are is bound by the choices we make in life. Fred has had many years of making the wrong choices. Making the most hateful and despicable choices, knowing that he is harming others. Do not absolve him of responsibility for those choices based on something that may or may not have happened to him a lifetime ago.
Only because it was an untapped market. He wasn’t a believer in equal rights, he was a believer in making money where he could.
Well said.
Not me.
I can’t stand long lines. 
Word is, this is God’s policy now too. Too many bad apples abused the “repent and be forgiven” program.
I’m not trying to make excuses for him. I *did *say it wouldn’t absolve the hate, didn’t I ? I’m sure I must have. If only there was a way to go back in time and find out what I said…
I thought Paul hated fags too?
As for Fred. it’s enough for me as an atheist to fervently wish that there were a Hell so this asshole could suffer eternal torment in it. But, unfortunately, in reality he sleeps as peacefully now as Mandela or Mother Teresa. The universe was never about fair.
Nathan I feel for.
Fred never went to West Point. He did have the appointment, but went on a mission trip the summer before. A mission trip with two older men. A family member,(I think it was a sister) said he came back from that a changed young man.
Let’s just say that I hope nobody pickets his funeral, because it would involve acknowledging his existence.
And I think the Pit is an appropriate place for this thread, because that’s where he’s probably headed.
One of my Facebook friends, who’s openly gay and a devout Christian who’s thinking about going into the ministry, said he’d love to be a fly on the wall at the Pearly Gates. 
(cue Divine in “Pink Flamingos”) “Someone has sent me a bowel movement!”
I read somewhere that Jerry Falwell’s ministry used to get packages like this all the time, too.
Actually, it is legal. You can get stool sample kits that test for occult blood, and they come with a biohazard mailer.
I’m glad he’s dying because he specifically sought to increase human suffering, and presumably his cult will die with him, or soon after.
I’m sad that religion poisoned him, like it does so many others. Such a waste of a life.
It’s a good thing you aren’t God then. The God I worship, is one of mercy, and I truly believe that if Fred would repent of the evil he has done, and acknowledge God as his savior, then he would be forgiven and enter Heaven.
One night I dreamed death came for me,
and Heaven opened wide.
With kindly grace an angel came
and ushered me inside.
There, to my asonishment
Stood folks I’d known on Earth,
some I’d judged and labeled as
“unfit, of little worth.”
Indignant words rose to my lips
But never were set free,
For every face showed stunned surprise
No one expected me!
Your beliefs are shitty. John Wayne Gacy being forgiven at the last moment because of a deep repentance, isn’t a positive thing. It’s horrific and nonsensical.
The fact that you think this is a laudable way to run a universe is goofy-as-fuck.
I don’t think anyone is making an excuse for him – but an explaination for why he was like he was. It doesn’t excuse his actions. He still made the choice to act that way.
If he was born evil, then generally that would make him a sociopath, which would be also be making an excuse for him.
(I’ve heard his “civil rights” activism was mostly a farce to get attention)
Why all the hate for Phred? He was a great Doonesbury character, and the interplay between him and B.D. was always enjoyable.
And hi, Lucretia! Hope all is well with you and Bluesman, not to mention your kids who I guess are now grown up or close to it.
I said forgiven, I didn’t say “not punished”. Civil authority is a different thing than divine authority.
Because understanding evil is the only way to prevent it. Writing people off as born assholes is a surefire way of ensuring there will be more of them.
As my personal quote goes;
The greatest sin is to cast your evil upon the face of God.
To ascribe to Him the darkness in your own heart.
Fred Phelps is the poster child for this. And I don’t truly believe, after half a life of saying that his God is a god of Hate, that any repentance of this would be sincere. But since God knows men’s hearts, I’ll leave it up to him.
Actually if God does exist he’s responsible for a whole universe more of pain and suffering than Fred ever caused.
Knock-off Emily Dickinson; you can sing it to The Yellow Rose of Texas, as well.