Originally published May 2003. Since then the Westboro Baptist Church and Fred Phelps have become even more infamous.
BIBLICAL BIGOT: Fred Phelps, the minister of the Westboro Baptist Church in Topeka, Kansas organises evangelical pickets of the funerals of homosexual men with anti-gay placards and chants of Bible verses promising damnation.
Placards from the Westboro
Baptist Church demonstrators
Most of the Westboro (WBC) congregation is Phelps’ own family – 9 from his 13 children and many of his grandchildren. Phelps preaches absolute predestination: that God chooses the faithful elect and hates the remnant, and that God has a special hatred for homosexuals, who can never become one of the elect. The WBC is shown below at the funeral of Matthew Shepard, a young gay man murdered by homophobes.
They also picket any church or other organisation which affirms or even just tolerates same-sex relationships, calling them “fag-enablers”. They have a special loathing for Roman Catholics and media organisations. The photo below is their idea of an appropriate contribution to Memorial Day (similiar to our ANZAC Day) – flying the national flag upside down purposely to upset military veterans. Phelps claims he does it to signify “a nation in distress from fags”… right.
Westboro Baptist Church
demonstrating the love of God
The message on their website www.godhatesfags.com is so extreme that when I first read it I thought it was a parody. Unfortunately not. They even have a “memorial” page to Matthew Shephard which counts the days they say he has been in hell.
It is only fair to the town of Topeka, Kansas to point out that most of the town is shamed by what this extremist “church” does, mounting counter-demonstrations and even to the point of some citizens performing regrettable actions of their own such as vandalising the church buildings. Unfortunately, Fred Phelps thrives on the publicity and now mounts demonstrations all over the USA, even going to Hawai’i to protest their same-sex marriage laws and to New York post September 11 to picket the FDNY as a “fag fire department” and inform them that their dead gay (or allegedly gay) colleagues, such as celibate outreach-to-gays pastor Father Mychal Judge (below, his body being recovered) were burning in hell.
Father Mychal’s body is
recovered from the WTC
It is a cheap shot for someone like Phelps to avoid wrestling his own sins by demonising homosexuality as some sort of ultimate sin that negates any good a homosexual person might perform and which somehow transmutes Phelps’ own hate into a righteous act. He abuses religion by misusing it in this way. Beware of those who demand the punishment of others to usher in salvation.
Links on Rev Phelps and his “God hates fags” campaign:
Black Table Interview
Not today, Fred: Jared stands up for decency in Topeka
Catholic newsletter regarding (in part) Phelps’ protest at their church
More Jared admiration at the earnest www.godhatesphelps.com
The rather more witty www.godhatesfundies.com and their serious, detailed Phelps expose
A message to Topeka from Rev. Fred Phelps
FATHER MYCHAL JUDGE: “the Saint of 9/11”
I can’t think of any so-called “Christians” who stand more diametrically opposed to the good news of Jesus Christ — compassionate love — than the Phelps crowd.
In contrast, Father Mychal Judge was widely seen by many New Yorkers as a living saint even prior to his heroic death on 9/11. Mychal was deeply spiritual and worked with extraordinary compassion for the homeless, recovering alcoholics, people with AIDS, immigrants, gays and lesbians, and others rejected by society, as well as firefighters.
Fr. Mychal was openly gay, though celibate. He blessed and supported committed gay relationships asking, “Is there so much love in the world that we can afford to discriminate against any kind of love ?”
Mychal even had compassion for those, like the Phelps crowd, who spewed hatred. In 2000, while marching in a gay-inclusive St. Patrick’s Day parade, Mychal was confronted by screaming, angry protestors waving bibles and rosary beads. Mychal smiled at them with pity and blessed them. He affirmed them by speaking softly with some of them.
Is Mychal Judge “burning in hell” as Phelps claims? There are several medically documented miraculous healings through Fr. Mychal as “proof” that he was and is a saint. But we really only need to answer this question: Who led the more Christ-like life? Surely the Phelps crowd is already burning in a fearful, toxic hell of their making.
For further information on Father Mychal, I invite you to visit:
http://SaintMychalJudge.blogspot.com