Yay,Ireland has its own site. It has a special mention to my favourite Irish politician, Senator David Norris, a man who I would love to see as our President. A Joycean scholar with a true joie de vivre and a real classy queen. He’d be such a great representative of the modern Ireland.
The great BBC docu host Louis Theroux did a show a while ago when he spent 3 weeks with the cunts. Here’s a preview. During that show IIRC he talked to a web developer who just joined the church.
ETA: if you look at the right hand panel on that youtube page you’ll see a link to the whole show on googlevideo. Well worth the time.
Just picked a country at random and took a look at Sweden. There are pictures of the royal family there, and the text to accompany it parses like it was written by a 12 year old boy.
They look gay and slutty. They must be if they LOOK like it!
Pfft.
Nah. Picture him as the leader of a powerful theocracy, making his usual rants about this or that country or person or location being evil. Each time he does that, he pushes a button, and the camera shifts to the scene he was ranting about, which promptly blows up. Think Monty Python’s How Not To Be Seen skit. He keeps ranting and button pushing, the explosions keep getting bigger and bigger, from people to houses to mushroom clouds, until finally he blows up the whole planet Death Star style.
How strange that Fred Phelps and Slayer are finally in agreement.
He is certifiably insane. I don’t have much for to say other than that.
This is only mildly more coherent than Time Cube.
Ten points to the website for looking pretty damn slick. Negative ten thousand points for being full of batshit crazy.
The thing is, this isn’t some new evolution in the WBC’s viewpoint - they’ve always thought this. I remember reading a feature in the local alt-weekly a few years ago where, in anticipation of a Phelps visit to our town*, a reporter went and hung out with the Phelps clan. The conclusion, if I recall correctly, was basically “They truly believe the primarily old testament passages about God being a vengeful, wrathful, angry dude you do not want to piss off.” In their beliefs, god really does hate everyone, and your best bet at not getting an eternal smackdown is to pray fervently, try to spread the word, and most likely be related to Fred Phelps.
It’s quite a shame that such a pretty website is being wasted on such crazy hatred.
*My town has one of the greatest concentrations of same-sex households and, in general, is a very GLBT-friendly town. There was a wholly uncharacteristic and entirely shocking beating in a parking lot one night, and a group organized a candlelight vigil in honor of the man (who nearly died). The Phelps announced they planned on showing up, but I’m not sure that the even did.
I live in Topeka, and have all my life. I was born just a few months before Fred slunk into town in 1955. He’s been a whack job as long as I can remember, the picketing only started in 1992. Back when Fred lost his law licenses he made his kids sell candy to “support the church”. They couldn’t come home until they’d sold a certain amount. But the candy suppliers cut him off because he wouldn’t pay for the stuff.
I really need to drive by their compound and see if they’ve changed the banner on the side of the church. It usually reads " GodHatesAmerica.com". And there’s a flag pole with the American and Canadian flags. Canadian above the American, and both flying upside down.
It’s rumored (i.e. not proven, only malicious gossip- but with the Phelps clan it wouldn’t surprise me) that Phred or one of his sons is the father of Shirley Phelps Roper’s oldest son, who was born out of wedlock when she was a teenager. (She’s since married and gives birth twice a year or so for a total of about 62 so far.)
The saddest thing on the Lewis Theroux documentary was the grandchildren. He asked if they had boyfriends and they giggled and asked “Who’d date us? We’re Phelpses!” They’re resigned to their fate (and to the family ideology of course).
Everytime one of the daughters (usually Shirley) is interviewed it becomes a “You people are scum!” “No you’re the scum!” “No you are!” “God hates you!” “He hates you more!” screaming match. I’ve often wondered how she’d react if somebody instead said, softly but sincerely, “Do you realize that your life can still be redeemed? Is this really what you want for yourself and for your children?” While I somehow doubt it would result in her sobbing and saying “You’re right…” I think it would make for an interesting if very brief spit-take on her part.
Are we all looking at the same web-site?!
The front page isn’t bad – although breaks if javascript is off and uses Flash exclusively* (thus proving Fred to be evil… as if any further confirmation was needed). Clicking through the US and China pages are ok, but the others appear to have been “designed” (and I use the term liberally) by an award winner from Web Pages That Suck – the Ireland page is practically a textbook example of how not to build a web page.
*compare with the Spread Firefox (world record page), which features a similar zoomable world map, but which if javascript is off presents the same data in tabular text form.
We all love your charming tendency to hyperbolic numbers. But would you have the real figures handy?
Wow; I’m watching that now, and the figure I find most interesting is the guy who, unlike most of the church, is not a blood relative. He apparently came as a documentary filmmaker years ago, with mainstream (non-crazy) tolerant views, and somehow was transformed into a full-blown Phelps whacko. How the hell did that happen?
Oh and this
Is very badly researched(no shit I hear you all say). The Catholic Church in Ireland is called the Church or The Catholic Church. The Church of Ireland is protestant.
You should write them so they can print a retraction.
She’s borne at least 12, of whom one is dead (died at or soon after birth) and one (second oldest and the first born after her marriage) left the cult and was disowned. Of the living, 8 are male and 3 are not. (Of course the statement that she had a baby who died came from her on some talk show and the family’s not above lying, so who knows; they also claim that their kids had to run from gays intent on molesting them whenever they played in the park, though strangely no other family seemed to have this problem.)
According to Wikipedia, she has 11 children.
Wow; thanks. I should have looked that up myself. Just couldn’t resist teasing you a little.
Lots of groups have crazy beliefs; but I’ve never seen people so clearly happy to be hated. When they picket a soldier’s funeral and get yelled at by people, they seem so much in their element and so satisfied and smug.
Which suggest (to me at least) how Fred could be “spoofed” after a fashion: treat them as a comedy act. Paste flyers advertising that the Phelps Comedy Troupe will be performing at (some date & location they plan to picket). State that all donations will go to (some GBLT charity). Have some extra ringers stand with their picket holding “God Hates Shrimp” placards or ones denouncing poly-cotton, or planting two crops in the same field. Turn up as laugh as an audience, have people take up a donation. Interview Fred; ask him how he feels about the money that got raised from today’s act and thank him for supporting the charity.
Realistically i doubt anyone could keep up such a spoofing act in the face of the tireless devotion to hate the clan seem to have… but it’s a nice idea.
I’ve heard one of the clan say that the Levitical admonitions against things like shellfish and weaving different fibers together are just ceremonial, and not important like the fag stuff. (Why they’re obsessed with homosexuality instead of garden-variety heterosexual adultery is another question.)
Boy, old Gramps is an asshole. Being insane is one thing, but he’s just an inconsiderate prick as well.
ETA: What I find creepiest is that (most of the time, anyway), the clan sound like normal people if you just listen to the tone of their voices. If you can ignore the content of what they’re saying for a moment, they sound like lucid people; they’re not speaking in tongues or having fits; they normally don’t speak with a cadence I’d associate with fanaticism.
Maybe not a gay night club, but how about a halfway house for GBL kids thrown out of their houses by fundie parents and pregnant teens also thrown out of their homes by fundie parents 