Tomorrow, the State Museum of Pennsylvania is showing a movie called Jim in Bold, a movie about a gay man from Lebanon County who committed suicide as a result of the extreme homophobia he suffered.
The movie is being shown as part of a pride festival. Sadly, pride festivals draw Phelpses like, well, cattle draw flies. Fortunately, a local GLBT youth group is staging a counter protest, and has publicized this to the local universities.
I read the WBC press release on this affair, and aside from the nausea it induces, the release is so vile it violates the SDMB two-click rule. Truthfully, I cannot fathom the depths of the hatred in the mind of Fred Phelps. It’s not enough that he and others of his ilk actively protest against homosexuality. After all, it is their right to do so, as much as I disagree with his opinion. What makes me sickest is that they celebrate human suffering. Dr. and Mrs. Wheeler, Jim’s parents, lost a son, and will spend the rest of their lives with that. Phelps et al. are hoping to turn this into a circus of hatred and intolerance.
I have an idea on how to counter the evil that phelps brings to a town:
Get a bunch of friends together, and each pledge to give a certain amount of money to a pro-gay charity organization for every hour that the homophobics remain protesting in that town.
Been done already, and the Phelp’s advertised it as proof of their own effectiveness. Doubt much will happen with them, unless counter protestors get out of hand. The Phelps clan are cowards. When they attacked the minister of the church I was attending at the time(chubby, graying, in his fifties) they did it four to one. Did you ever see the video of their so called protest in San Francisco, at the funeral of Randy Shilts? They stayed less than a minute! I’d tell matt_mcl’s story about the Phelps clan and the Mountie, but I’d just be repeating myself. Funny though.
My advice to any counter demonstrators is to keep a certain distance from them, and not to speak in response to them. Sing your own songs or chant your own slogans, but do not interact. But DO be there. Some people think, after ten years of this crap, that if you ignore them they will go away. Huh.
Wish I could be there. It would drive them even crazier to see someone from Topeka “following” them! They were across the street from my church(Grace Episcopal Cathedral) just last Sunday again, and, as usual when they see me, yelled and called me the church whore.
Keep us posted on what, if anything, happens. If there is a newspaper link that would be cool.
My solace comes from the belief that if there really is an afterlife, then Phelps, and all the other fringe extremists who twist writings to support their own version of the Witch Burnings at Salem will experience the sort of emotional and physical torment they dispensed on Earth. Men of the cloth? Hardly. They’re dysfunctional pieces of societal excrement which I attempt to scrape from the bottom of my shoe whenever I step into their droppings.
It might be more fun to be in Chicago the day after the Phelps clan puts in it’s Pennsylvania appearance. On Sept 29 they say they will picket the Chicago Bears player Kordell Stewart, at Soldier Field. Hmm, rowdy football players that could use a target.
So, these people who call themselves “Christian” are going to picket and attempt to demean a man (Kordell Stewart) on the basis of malicious rumor. :rolleyes: There are a few verses in Paul which condemn “gossip, malice and slander”, but they seem to get overlooked.
I do believe in the existence of evil. I cannot, despite my logic, even rule out the existence of demons. If I’ve said this before, forgive me. If there is anyone on the face of the planet who I suspect of worshipping a demon, Phelps is him, and the really sad thing is, Phelps apparently thinks what he’s worshipping is God. Somehow I think his experience in the next world is going to be vastly different from what he thinks it will be. I wouldn’t want to have his soul.
How did it go? Did they actually show up? Sometimes they make big, bad noises like they say they will picket, but then chicken out. A few were in front of my church again, here in Topeka, at 10:15 AM.
I think that everywhere Phelps and his ilk decide to show up, someone should do what they did in Laramie, and get a bunch of people in angel costumes to block the sight of the Phelpsians with huge, unfurled wings. Phelps and his cronies certainly aren’t on the side o the angels, no matter what they want to claim.
Forgive the brief hijack, but Baker, why on earth do they picket your church and call you awful names?!
TeaElle, for one thing, I am a member of Grace Episcopal Cathedral here in Topeka, and you know how evil we Episcopalians are. The reason they call me names in particular is because years ago, when they first started picketing, I was a member of a local Lutheran church, but aided another Episcopal parish here in holding their “witness” signs, when Phelps and his crew went to picket them. They would see me in both places on a Sunday morning and took to calling me the “church whore”, because “I couldn’t decide where I wanted to do my spiritual fornicating.” It was at the Lutheran parish where they came right onto our lawn and “took down” our minister because they say he assaulted them. From fifteen feet away. At four to one odds. Sure. I feel that congregation did not give the minister enough moral support, although his legal fees when the Phelps took him to court were paid.