One of the columnists in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette brought this up a week or so ago, and I nearly Pitted it then, but I thought I’d spare you folks. Whatever it is that Phelps worships, I want no part of it.
CJ
Like a lot of people are saying, it’s not that surprising. In fact, not only was I not outraged and sputtering, I’m bored enough to notice that he’s re-using his vitriol to an un-journalistic degree, he’s got the shittiest scanner I’ve ever seen, and his choice in demon-clipart is hilarious in the extreme. :D.
P.S. - Does anyone know if there’s anybody who’s ever died who is not “burning in eternal fire and brimstone”? I mean, if Mr. Rogers doesn’t qualify, the G-man’s gotta be hard pressed to pull together a bridge game.
Do you ever wonder if Fred is just a great big parody, and we’re all being royally whooshed?
Anyway… as CrankyAsAnOldMan once said, Fred Phelps makes me want to go commit sodomy.
Pretty much. I’m not wishing death on him; it’s just what I think. Rumors of cancer and whatnot. Also, the guy’s like, what, 75?
You know what I find most interesting about this guy? The fact that he used to be pretty put-together. Eagle scout and scholar/athlete in high school and a West Point appointment after. Even when he was starting to lose it, he fought Jim Crow laws in court and stood up for civil rights for black people. And yes, I’ve read that section in Addicted to Hate. I just reject the assertion that the easiest way for a southern lawyer to make money in the 50’s and 60’s was to defend poor black people. That fucking took guts. He still condemns racism even in the worst homophobic rant. He did pretty well in law school, and he was an effective lawyer before getting disbarred deservedly.
I wonder when he lost it. I wonder how he lost it. You can still see some of the old lawyer in his silly fucked-up fliers. This isn’t some racist moron turd with a dream for White America, an IIS server, and a “Fucked At Birth” tattoo on his forehead. This is a lunatic who used to be sane and who might have been a great man if he hadn’t wound up a wife- and child-beating asshole.
That said, I won’t cry when he checks out.
It wouldn’t be a huge surprise to me if that turned out to be true.
He’d still be scum for picketing funerals, though. Joke or not.
Linty Fresh, thanks. That link is pretty amazing. Most of his family are lawyers? Makes all the lawyer jokes hold water.
Matt_mcl said
Deary! I sure hope you didn’t mean with him. BLECH! He reminds me of the skeletal man from Poltergeist 2 but uglier. YUCK. Time to go wash my mind out of that filth now and think about commiting sodomy with David Hasslehoff (gotta love the helmet hair look) or some other random TV star.
I get a rotten taste in my mouth whenever I think of that asshat, too, and I supppose that might get it to go away.
Still, matt, I wouldn’t have thought you’d need to wait for the excuse.
No, I can buy that his claim to be a “civil rights” lawyer is fraudulent.
That was around his crazy period, so it’s not hard to buy. Besides, most people say he was just trying to be a pain in the ass.
Echoing **Miller’s ** intelligent words and **Linty Fresh’s ** well thought out writing of wondering exactly *when exactly did things go odd for Phred Phelps? * , I would like to ask, has Phelp’s every actually approved of anyone?
My questions that I kinda want answered:
Any info on Phred’s father? Was his father this megalomanical ? Or is Phred his own brand of asshat?
Is he a middle child of 15 kids and just an attention whore to end all attention whores?
Did he start going loony when he started having a bunch of kids and got a little heavy into the bible as a means of controling not only his progeny but anyother sheeple that he comes across?
Just how big is his following?
I bet shrinks would love to do a study on him. He is the Osama Bin Laden of preachers.
What is the problem with Kansas that causes people like this nutball and **Rita ** to crop up. No cable, no drinking? No rock and roll? What? How…the mind boggles.
Ok, reading the Godhatesfundies.com sight, I see that Phreddie boy is one of two kids and his sister hasn’t talked with him for years.
Neither have a couple of his own children.
Sorry, Guinastasia, he’s a jerk, I’ll agree, but I don’t buy that he was just trying to be a pain in the ass. There were a lot more effective ways to get on people’s nerves back then, and the PITA reason only works if you argue that he was doing this just to piss off racists, as opposed to everybody else. Also, while he was almost certainly losing his mind during this time, I doubt that this was the motivating factor behind his civil rights (the term doesn’t really belong in quotes, btw, because he was very effective in this regard.) crusade. One does not take up the mantle against oppression simply because one is crazy.
I’m quite certain he enjoyed being the outsider goading the mainstream into wanting to string him up in front of the nearest courthouse, but this seems to be a secondary thing. I hate to say this, because I hate saying anything nice about the cretin, but it really does look as if the hatred of racism came first and the love of being a hated outsider came second.
As far as his father, what little I’ve read states that he was a railroad bull who was pretty strict at home. Reading between the lines, that probably means that Phred got whipped fairly often at home. I wouldn’t necessarily say that Phred’s insanity can be laid at the father’s doorstep, but . . .
What the heck is a railroad bull?
And I agree with you, Linty, I think he created his own brand of crazy.
A railroad bull was ostensibly a security guard hired by the railroad to patrol the railroad yard and prevent theft/violence/other crime. Unofficially, the bull was a tool to discourage hobos from riding the rails by beating the shit out of them when he caught them sleeping in the cars. They weren’t really hired for their people skills.
I don’t think I would have a great deal of fun growing up with a bull as a father. Still, a lot of guys in that era endured tough upbringing, and they didn’t turn out anywhere near as bad as Phelps.
My feeling was that he wasn’t accusing Rogers himself of actually being gay, but only of upholding the whole ‘fag-enabling system’, as he puts it, through Rogers’ tenets of tolerance and gentleness.
I have an idea on how we could really make Fred’s head implode. If you peruse his website, with it’s lists of faxes and planned picketings, you will notice that they take special pride in picketing productions, mainly by colleges, of The Laramie Project. What would happen if we could get a movement started, the goal of which would be to have at least four or five colleges/universities, in every state, put this play on the dame day, or week? The more the merrier, I wouldn’t want to limit attendance. There would be so many places to picket that the WBC and Fred might have apoplexy trying to figure out which performance to picket at, knowing that whatever they did they wouldn’t be reaching but a tiny percentage of playgoers.
Sometimes I have the urge to picket Phelps Church… or better yet, his funeral.
Ah, the Irony!
Not much to it but at least their heart is in the right place.
He’s on his way to my school, Webster University, in April to protest our theatre’s production of The Laramie Project. A very large counter-protest is planned. I talked to a friend of mine who says she’s thinking about buying a few buttplugs, tossing them at him, and running away. 
Whatever the case, I plan to be at the protest and see the play.
What is this?? Our dear Minister Fred wanted to play Bert? Please!!