Phelps offers reward for gay basher

[Otto]

This just in from the "the world has turned on its head file:

After Michael Moon reported to police that he was attacked outside a Des Moines gar bar and that he believed the perpetrator might have been influenced by the hate speech of Fred Phelps, a homophobic Kansas minister who traveled to Des Moines to stage antigay protests, Phelps and his church clan want to set the record straight. So they are offering a $1,000 reward for information leading to an arrest in the attack, which occurred last month and resulted in Moon’s leg being broken, the Des Moines Register reports.

“A crime is a crime,” said Shirley Phelps-Roper, a member of Phelps’s Westboro Baptist Church in Topeka, Kan., who is also the church’s attorney. “Two wrongs don’t make a right.” She said the reward offer shows that the church, whose members picketed a Des Moines high school commencement at which a gay student received top honors as well as a meeting of a Des Moines gay group a week before the alleged assault, does not condone violence. She also expressed doubt that the reported assault even occurred and wanted to squelch any suspicions that church members’ presence in Des Moines influenced the assailant.

This in Phelps’ twisted mind is an amazing PR ploy. He’ll undoubtedly point to this in years to come as “proof” of his message. Of course if the guy had died he’d have been there with “Moon’s in Hell” signs…

[iampunha]

This also means that Phred and company cannot be sued for “failing to protect”, or whatever it is. There is that snowball’s chance in hell that the (hypothetical) prosecution of any future case against Moon’s murderer (should he end up being killed) could make the argument that Phelps et al. did nothing to dissuade this man from taking lethal action against Moon. It’s more CYA, as I see it, than anything else.

I’m expecting the anti-gay crowd in this country to lift the man’s banner upon hearing this news. “See, he isn’t anti-gay! That picketing is just because he’s … um … in the area! And all those faggits is goin’ to Hay-ull anyhow! One family’s picketing ain’t gonna change God’s plan any more than one man choosing a homosexual lifestyle!”

[cuauhtemoc]

I was hoping you were going to say he was offering a reward to a gaybasher. I thought he might have finally done something that really could get him put away.

That would be illegal, right?

[Forbin]

I opened the thread because I thought the topic was the same as cuauhtemoc thought.
I think it would be a crime cuauhtemoc.

Conspiracy to commit murder perhaps?
Either that or conspiracy to commit assault.