:eek:
The needle on my Skeeve-o-Meter is now buried further in the red than Star Jones’ tampon.
I guess I can feel sorry for this beguiled woman. Then, since its in the picture, I can feel sorry for the dead soldiers and their families. Then, by proximity to the issue, I can feel sorry for Iraq, since its like a litter of 26 million puppies cringing while large dogs make their rounds biting out the puppies throats. By this time I could agree with Phelps that God is a sadistic asshole, and I can feel sorry for Phelps himself since, by his lights, we’re trapped in a world where God sure isn’t Love, and He’s out there proving it all day long.
I have absolutely NO sympathy for Fred himself. To borrow a line from Crucible the man “should be ripped out of the world!” and while I wouldn’t advocate beating him to death I’d definitely send some change to the defense fund to the “wrong damned loved one of a picketing victim” who did. But… I just cannot the hell that that woman has been through that made her what she is and kept her there.
Okay…I know this’ll probably go over like a fart in church, but this jerk gets way too much air time on TV and around here. Yes, he’s an idiot. Yes, he’s got a black heart. Yes, he has a rather unpopular interpretation of christianity (though not completely unheard of). So what? From this atheist’s standpoint, he’s no more bizarre than many other (most) takes on the big picture – christian or otherwise. God is mean, god is vengeful, blah, blah, blah. It’s all different takes on the same stories and his opinion means nothing to me either way. The fact that his small numbers get so much attention is more than a little disturbing. He’s a shithead, but he’s still just a blip on the screen.
Our laws protect a guy’s right to be a jerk. A crazy mutherfuckin’ jerk, at that. Now, I’m not saying I embrace his message or tactics in any way, shape, or form. But I don’t see how picketing a soldier’s funeral is any different than the Klan marching on Skokie. It’s hateful and painful for those who lived it or who are close to the deceased. It bothers me that people are more outraged about the fact that soldiers are getting the treatment when the Skokie jews have had to face this kind of demonstration periodically for years, but that’s another thread, I suppose.
I agree with the other posters who say that this Phelpsian behavior, for the most part, would go unnoticed except for the outraged media blathering on about it. I love the fact that the Guard bikers are there to offer strength and support to the families merely by standing there and starin’ 'em down. I don’t understand military dudes calling for new laws to put more distance between Phelps and funerals. Do they forget what principles they’re fighting for???
Much of the outrage I’ve seen with regard to Phelps is that he interprets god differently than a lot of (but not certainly not all) people. This disparity has been going on within the ranks of christianity forever. It’s not surprising to me to see yet another extremist religious group rear its unpopular head. But pointing and raging at it certainly won’t make it go away.
The far more interesting issue, in my opinion, is the apparent “group lunacy” that has affected nearly every member of his family. Does anyone know if any of his family members have distanced themselves from the group, or did he get 'em all?
Yes. He has 13 children of whom 9 (with their own families) remain loyal to him and mostly live on the same street as him and 4 who are “apostates”. His most vocal “ex-son” is Mark (sometimes written as Marks) Phelps who has written an online book about his father and tells absolute horror stories of Growing Up Phelps that would seem manufactured if they weren’t corroborated by other evidence (including comments by siblings still in the group and police/school/medical records of the kids). These kids had childhoods that would turn anybody’s hair white and included being forced to jog five miles each morning at 4 a.m. after selling candy door to door until 11 p.m. the night before (this was a routine day), seeing their mother walk around bald because daddy had cut her hair off for an insult and seeing him have sex with her while the family was gathered around, sons being beaten into unconsciousness with an axe handle when Fred was a meth addict, etc…
The interesting thing about Fred is that he’s a genius. He was a child prodigy, excellent student, etc., he just happens to be nucking futs and capable of controlling. He also was very active for a while in civil rights for blacks (though he’s also an ardent white supremacist- go figure). He’s a character you couldn’t make up.
I agree he’s given too much media exposure, but the point of this thread is mainly the pathos of his daughter. I genuinely feel for her and would love her to know (though I’d never approach her of course) that her life can still be redeemed (and this is coming from an atheist). She has to know on some level that everything she “believes” is wrong- there’s got to be some angel she yet doth serve.
Maybe she’ll ultimately throw her father into a nuclear reactor while lightning bursts from his hands in order to save the life of her gay Jedi son. I doubt it, but it would really be cool.
I hate this. They’re giving WBC exactly what they want, publicity. They feed into stuff like this.
How many minor grandchildren are swept up into this family’s hatred? Can DCF not get involved?
This is actually why I think more publicity might be a good thing, here. Enough public outrage at the man, and enough attention to the abhorrent way he has treated his children (and, no doubt, his grandchildren) might be enough to generate some legal action against him. If he’s ignored, and his victims to frightened or brainwashed to escape, he can continue his abuse unrestricted.
Thanks for the family background information. I’m going to have to Google up on Mark(s). I’m surprised no one has made a movie about this family yet. This is the stuff great cinema is made of!
I agree that there’s a chance she’s not completely sucked into the vortex of insanity, but from the looks of her in that video, it would take a whole lotta deprogramming to undo that many years of evilspeak.
In fact, I believe that there’s even a chance Freddie (I picture him like the Nightmare on Elm Street monster! Bwahaha!) could be straightened out. But still…he’s such a speck in the universe of humanity. There’ll always be shitheads. When we rid ourselves of him, another will be along. I will continue to put my faith in the goodness of most people to drown out the likes of him every time.
He really *is * a science project, though…isn’t he?
He does look like he’s turning into Palpatine in that photo.
His oldest daughter-that would be Kathy, right? She’s one of the ones who got away, although from what I gather, she’s had a lot of problems as she was one of the “scapegoat” kids. What was she like?
Knorf, normally I would agree, but the Phelps kids never had a chance. That’s why I don’t say, “Oh, but they’re adults now!” They’re acting out of extreme ignorance and years upon years of severe emotional, mental, and physical abuse. Of those four that left-two boys and two girls-the boys have been diagnosed with PTSD and have some hard physical ailments as well from all the beatings. I think Mrs. Phelps is now disabled as a result of her husband pushing her down the stairs.
I think the reason why they get so much attention, at least around here, is that they are truly bizarre. Fred is NOT your average homophobe-he’s just a psychopathic monster who happens to have picked homosexuals as his main target. Before he started on the whole “god hates fags” crap, he mostly focused right on his own family-until those loyal finally stood up to him, well, to a point.
Kalhoun, there won’t be a movie until Fred dies and the family cult falls apart-they’re all a pack of lawyers-Fred himself was disbarred, but he made each of his children go to law school and they’re about as litigious as the Scientologists.
I find the whole thing fascinating, in a sick way. I can’t really condemn his kids-they’ve never known anything but hate. Yeah, some of them left, but Nate and Kathy were considered the family blacksheeps anyways. Kathy supposedly is on welfare and has had substance abuse problems. Mark faired better when he met his wife, but he says he could’ve ended up just like his siblings. Dorothy-I don’t know much about her, but surely someone could help out here.
I was hoping for a “ripped from the headlines” thinly veiled account, a la Law and Order.
But I’m very patient.
I can’t find Mark Phelps’s online self-published book about his dad (he may have removed it due to hassle and lawsuits) but he’s quoted frequently in another booklength writing about Phelps that’s available several places online and entitled Addicted to Hate. It has a lot of information on his children’s childhood and the various family members as well as Phelps’ own childhood and relations with his parents (he was born in Mississippi, was extremely close to his father but renounced him as a hell bound heretic when he divorced Fred’s mother and remarried- Fred harassed his stepmother [whom he never met] by phone and mail long after his father died).
Fred’s son Jr. was engaged to and may have married a girl named Debbie Valgos who Fred hated and denounced as a whore in his sermons, on street corners and on the billboards of his church. Her death was officially a suicide but many have claimed that the family either pushed her totally over the edge or may have been more involved, but no charges were ever filed. Fred Jr. is currently married to a girl handpicked by his father.
Something that occurs: the Phelps’ children who are still with him grew up in a reign of terror and of course associate their father with power and absolute authority. They also know that their father is internationally famous and frequently on TV and has even been portrayed in movies and on stage and of course they know how hated he is which feeds their sense of persecution and martyrdom, but I wonder if they know how absolutely powerless he is? To the rest of the world he’s an old circus geek publicity whore but he has no power or influence on anybody outside of his family. I wonder if they realize how ultimately impotent he is.
I’m really not obsessing over Shirley (except in this thread), but I honestly feel there may still be a human inside her. Her eyes remind me of the eyes of the people in complete despair and terror and bewilderment over their surroundings that I used to work with when I was employed by a mental hospital and when I volunteered in a hospice. She’s a terrified little girl. Who pickets the funerals of gay men and servicemen and calls out horrible names while waving sexually explicit signs and teaches her children to do the same. Rather like a serial killer you’ve read about who had a horrendous unspeakably victimized childhood- you want to stop them from hurting others and even punish them but even so there’s just a nagging humanity in them that indicates what might have been had they been “saved” before they killed. Hmm.
Oh well, tomorrow I’ll be over her and obsessing over the huge rise in the prices of 1970s toys and Orlando Bloom’s new close cropped hairstyle. I’ll be here all week, enjoy the veal.
I have to imagine that it would take people with TREMENDOUS courage to foster any children that the Kansas child protection agency took from the WBC. I can only imagine the kind of nightmare life would be if the Phelpses considered you to be complicit in the “kidnapping” and “imprisonment” of their children.
So, Sampiro, there’s another book about Fred Phelps in addition to Addicted to Hate? And Mark actually wrote it himself?
Count me in as having absolutely no feelings of sympathy for anyone in that clan over the age of eighteen. What a bleeding, festering swamp of evil. The best thing to have done would be not to have Shirley on the show in the first place, but since they did, I can’t fault Hannity and Colmes for how they played it. They basically got her on the show and hounded her and abused her as she just sat there and took it with the Branch Davidian Drooling Sneer [sup]TM[/sup]. If they had let Shirley get a word in edgewise, she would have run roughshod over those two knuckleheads, because acting up in front of the cameras is something that every Phelps member knows how to do. We know she’s crazy. If you absolutely have to have her on the show, you might as well bait her like a staked bear. If nothing else, it’s great fun.
I’m with Kalhoun on not playing into the Phelps’s hands by violating their civil rights with unconstitutional laws that they can turn back on the legislature for costly lawsuit damages. Matter of fact, I would oppose the laws even if that wasn’t the Phelps clan’s modus operandi. Censorship is censorship, and unconstitutional censorship against anyone will take this country somewhere we don’t want to be in a damned hurry.
In fact, I’d agree with the people talking about the benefits of the increased media coverage. Don’t forget that we’re talking about crazy people here, and the only thing you can count on a crazy person to do consistently is act crazy. They’re watching their step now, and even back when they were fucking up, they weren’t national news, so no one cared. Just sit back, let them do their thing, and sooner or later, someone’s gonna fuck up. They can’t help it. They’re crazy. Do you really think someone who looks and thinks and acts like Shirley Phelps-Roper is goihg to keep that wall up between her professional life and her personal life forever? When you deal with a whole bunch of crazy people in one place with the wrath and hatred of the entire nation directed against them, sooner or later, someone’s going to snap.
Let’s let them carry on. Let’s let them protest. Let’s just let them gather a whole bunch of rope and twist it into nooses. Sooner or later, one of them is going to get bored, stupid, or careless enough to stick his or her neck into onet, and then we can watch the real fun begin.
I don’t believe it ever appeared in hard-copy, but it was on one of the anti-Phelps websites for a while. It was basically an amateur memoir/expose of growing up in the family and seems to have been mined for the Addicted to Hate piece (which quotes Mark at length and I think a lot of it comes from what he wrote). Unfortunately I don’t remember the name of it.
An appalling glaring hypocrisy of the Phelps clan is how many of them work for the state of Kansas or the city of Topeka when they so hate the governments of both (or of any kind). I suppose it’s like the Mormon excommunicate cults “bleeding the beast” with welfare and food stamp fraud while decrying the evil of the US Gov’t.
I had to stop reading Addicted to Hate because I was getting ill. I wonder how much Shirley believes her claptrap? It sound like Nate and Mark got very good at faking it with their father to avoid beatings. Now that Phelps can no longer abuse his children, I wonder if his hold over his children is to threaten the grandbabies?
Maybe to survive and protect her children, she has to be a spokesperson of hate.
If ever I wanted to look into the eyes of a crazyperson, I now have a link.
You mean Hannity, or Colmbs?
Well, them too.