It's not as if I find the extreme-Left, America-hating, anti-war loonies any less despicable than I always have. But, I think there's someone who could just possibly be even worse. His name? Fred Phelps.
The fire-and-brimstone preacher, who laughably calls himself a reverend and claims he's a Christian, is obsessed with homosexuals. He damns all to Hell who even dare to stick up for homosexuals. Like our troops for defending America — "fag nation" in "Rev." Phelps' eyes.
Phelps and his congregation at the Topeka, Kansas-based Westboro Baptist Church have praised 9/11 and Hurricane Katrina as punishment for a nation that, according to him, enables gays. He delivered an obscenity-laced sermon to praise the fatal beating of gay teenager Matthew Sheppard. His supporters regularly attend the funerals of those killed in Iraq, mocking the dead and their families for fighting for America. According to Phelps, if America wants to bring its ideas of freedom and democracy to Iraq, then Iraq will turn into a "fag nation" as well.
It would be wrong to assume, as a knee-jerk liberal would, that Christians have embraced this toxic-brained lunatic. It is simply not true. Even Jerry Falwell has spoken against him.
In his earlier days, Phelps tried to convert Mormons, insulting them in the process. He lived in Canada for a while. After blessing the U.S. with his return, the former pugilist continued to advocate beating as a patriarch's right. He once delivered a sermon at the Eastside Baptist Church in Topeka denouncing a female member of his congregation for being a whore when he learned that she was pregnant. While still in the employ of this same church, he punched his own infant son, Mark, several times in the face when he dared to squirm during one of his sermons. Now, as much as I hate the likes of al-Zarqawi or bin Laden, I doubt that even they are sub-human enough to beat up babies.
Phelps consumed large quantities of drugs and alcohol, terrorized his family, and may even have been involved in the death of a young woman. You get the point. He's a dangerous bastard.
Reading about his guy's past is painful. But even scarier than that is that this low-life is still around, still preaching, putting America down, insulting soldiers' families, and advocating violence against gays.
Article comments
— go to most recent comments1 - Christopher Soden
"It would be wrong to assume, as a knee-jerk liberal would, that Christians have embraced this toxic-brained lunatic." The REASON we assume it is because there are SO FEW Right-Wing, Christian-Fundamentalist Republicans who do and will stick up for us. Sadly there are very few Christians who will, period.
2 - NR Davis
I don't believe it is possible to build bridges of cooperation with people who would consider people "despicable" for believing in equality for all and peace or consider us even possibly being as horrible as a human being whose only job is to spread hatred. We "despicable" people don't want to silence you or take your legal rights away or cast you as a second-class citizen in any way. And most of us don't equate mainstream Christians with Phelps - hell, many of us ARE Christians.
You find us despicable, Mr. Manning? That's a shame, considering we apparently have points of agreement. Even if I find many of your views repugnant, I certainly would *never* label you thusly.
Given your opening position, and if the only choices available are working alongside you or putting Fred into a padded cell, I'd have to vote for the latter. Please take this statement respectfully, because my statement is made with no lack of respect toward you.
NR Davis
3 - Mark Edward Manning
"if the only choices available are working alongside you or putting Fred into a padded cell, I'd have to vote for the latter"
I'm crushed, Natalie.
4 - NR Davis
Thanks for underscoring my sad feeling, Mr. Manning.
5 - Mark Edward Manning
Christopher, I think I've made it absolutely clear, speaking as a conservative myself, how much I despise Phelps, as much as a Leftie like yourself does. I'm am far from the only one. Every single conservative blog I've ever read - and there's been a lot of them - have trashed that moronic simpleton.
The problem, as I see it, is you refuse to grant others the right to believe as they wish. I've no religious affiliation myself, but if Christians see homosexuality as a sin, they are not exactly saying "Kill the homosexual." They are saying, "Love the person, condemn the sin." I don't believe it's a sin myself, in fact I heartily endorse the view that people are born homosexual, it is a product of nature not nurture. But I also support giving Christians the right to air their views and they are not simply toned-down versions of Phelps' ilk. Trying to get the entire world to agree with everything on the gay agenda is simply another form of fascism. Sorry, but it is.
Which is why, admittedly, my scenario at the end of this piece is a tad silly. I meant it as a joke, I'm not totally delusional. But hey, I maintain that I'd love to see it happen.
6 - NR Davis
Mr. Manning, there are some who insist you embrace them and agree with them and approve of them ("oh please, oh please love us; we'll even accept a modified equality that isn't equality at all"); you aren't wrong about that. Fact is, though, many of us don't care what society thinks. Despise me all you want - sure, it hurts, but so what? The only *important* thing is how society treats us, our kids, and our families under *law*. Just as all Christians aren't like Phelps, all leftists aren't saying "Agree with us or else." Even though I can't abide much of what it says, I don't care if the antigay right wing expresses itself. So long as I can too, and I am equal under a law that separates church [a quite different thing from a religious citizen with a political viewpoint, who certainly is and should be free to speak his or her piece] from state, we have no problem.
Oh - and I don't despise Phelps at all. Or you.
NR Davis
7 - JP
Maybe it's me, but I have a hard time taking a post seriously when the first line includes an immediate reference to "the extreme-Left, America-hating, anti-war loonies"--regardless of what you say about them, or how you attempt to balance that with dislike from someone to the opposite extreme.
It weakens the strength of the concerns you express regarding the person about whom you're writing the article.
8 - Jet in Columbus
Mr. Manning you've obviously never walked out of a resturant to be confronted by a sign that reads "KILL A QUEER FOR CHRIST!"
9 - chantal stone
re. comment #1 "The REASON we assume it is because there are SO FEW Right-Wing, Christian-Fundamentalist Republicans who do and will stick up for us. Sadly there are very few Christians who will, period."
Christopher, believe me when I say that there ARE many Christians who are NOT like our right-wing counterparts. There are those of us who support gay-rights, and equality under the law for ALL people regardless of sexual orientation. There are many of us who do NOT view homosexuality as a sin, but rather as just another beautiful variation of the diverse human race.
And as Ms. Davis points out: many gay people are Christian.
It hurts me every time I hear "Christianity" in the same sentence as "anti-gay". I'm sorry my faith is so full of so many ignorant bigots, but trust me when I say, we're not all like that.
10 - Matthew T. Sussman
Anti-gay != anti gay marriage
11 - Jet in Columbus
As Hitler did before them, People like Frist, Bush and Falwell know that the only way to consolidate their power over the people is to distract them from their woes and find them a common enemy to hate. Before it was the Jews, now it's gays.
It was just as irrational to hate Jews then as it is to hate Gays now. What do they have in common?
Both are invisible. You don't know a Jew is a Jew unless he tells you, and unlike what some preach, you can't tell a gay is a gay unless he tells you.
We all don't swish and lisp you know.
Solus mei sententia
Jet
12 - Matthew T. Sussman
Bush, Frist and Falwell were responsible for the extermination of six million Jews?
Discussion over.
13 - Jet in Columbus
Matthew where the hell did I write that? and what is this vendetta you seem to have against me?
14 - Baronius
Phelps is a moron.
Morons have First Amendment rights.
Therefore, Phelps has First Amendment rights.
15 - Alec
I agree that Phelps can be distinguished from the political apparatus that is the religious right in this country...to a point. After all, behind the rhetoric of "love the sinner and hate the sin" is the stark political and legal reality: an entire movement dedicated to the elimination of homosexuality and discourse concerning homosexuality. It will not succeed, it never has before, but that does not change what it is, at a fundamental level. Further, this movement shares with Phelps some common assumptions: homosexuals are diseased, homosexuals undermine the family unit, homosexuals are child molestors, homosexuals blah blah blah. Basically, homosexuals are to Evangelical America what Jews were to Europe, before they were eliminated. It is not a difficult analogy.
That being said, I am all for free speech (a vision I wished the extremes of the left and right shared), but you cannot cloak opposition to gay rights under the shield of "free speech." Ultimately, we are talking about freedom of association, of speech, of family life and equal treatment and privacy. When it comes to gays, the Christian right has an exception to the general rule. While they are currently focused on family law, do not forget that they also supported sodomy laws, were opposed to laws that would have included gays in anti-discrimination statutory protections and any extension of hate crime legislation to cover gays. I note that libertarians are, generally, opposed to anti-discrimination and hate crime legislation, but the Christian right (publicly) is not opposed, only opposed to extending those protections to gays, as opposed to racial or religous groups (the latter, ironically, being a behavioral choice). Again, this is the "gay exception" they so steadfastly adhere to. Note, too, that one of the arguments advanced by Christian right organizations was that sodomy laws were invalid *only with respect to heterosexual sodomy*, a position that is unsupported by both religious/historical tradition and the historical legislative record. So yes, free speech for all the Christian extremists, but do not expect us to believe that they would, or do, reciprocate.
16 - Dave Nalle
Why on earth is Fred Phelps and his twisted congregation free to protest the funerals of soldiers and homosexuals?
As long as they keep it on public property what are we supposed to do about it? Class it as a 'hate crime' and use that as a bogus pretext to shred their first amendment rights?
Before it was the Jews, now it's gays.
Actually, Hitler had it in for the gays too.
Dave
17 - Mark Edward Manning
Natalie: As long as you don't classify me as being in the same mold as Phleps - as long as you are actually able to see me in a different light than him - unlike a lot of the other posters here, then I'll give you credit where credit's due.
I won't bother to explain myself further - I've already provided an in-depth explanation of my thought process in #5.
You see, Natalie, I'm such an unforgivable homophobe, that's why I was invited to a gay civil union partnership ceremony later this summer! (My wife's cousin is the lucky guy.) I'm telling you the truth, I honestly was - and I'll be in attendance. He and his partner are going to have the exact same rights as my wife and I have - they just aren't going to call it a "marriage." I am fine with that. So are they. Hell, I'm so frightened at the thought of being among all those gay men that I plan on wearing a kilt at the occasion. Yes, I'm really repressed.
And furthermore, I find it entirely laughable that the Left doesn't "want to silence conservatives or take their legal rights away or cast conservatives as a second-class citizens in any way." Isn't that what political correctness is all about, rewriting the rules of free speech to suit YOU? (Note: I approve of statutes to deal with the likes of dangerous men like Phelps, but not being able to call "insurgents" what they are - TERRORISTS - is just one small example of the lunacy of political correctness that you people brought about.)
Maybe you personally wouldn't jump at the chance to declare me a second-class citizen with no speaking power, but the overwhelming majority of your comrades would. In a fucking instant.
18 - Christopher Soden
"Trying to get the entire world to agree with everything on the gay agenda is simply another form of fascism. Sorry, but it is."
Matthew, man, First: Please don't use the expression: "gay agenda". Is it part of the "breeder agenda" to simply have a shot at finding a job, a place to live, a legally recognized marriage and the right to adopt children? Second: What I was trying to address is this: Just once when some fanatical religious leader makes an outrageous, unconscionable remark that could very possibly lead to yet MORE hate crimes ("....I would kill him and tell Jesus it was an accident" or words to that effect) I wish another religious leader or coalition of religious leaders would stand up and say: "This man does not speak for all Christians." It's one thing to say it on the sidelines and another to speak it in the forum.
19 - Joey
Phelps misunderstands scripture. Satan is the one who comes to seek, kill, and destroy. Once he gets over the "God is gonna take America to the woodshed" syndrome he will see the truth. Sadly this is not uncommon groupthink for the Baptist community. God doesn't hate the sinner, he hates the sin. And sin comes from where?
God doesn't tempt anyone, oh sure, misapplied I guess you could say He tempted Abraham into sacrificing his son. But God was checking Abraham's faith, not tempting him into human sacrifice.
Booze tempts, Drugs, Love of money, and a host of other things. Basically anything that replaces God as your primary thought and guides you elsewhere is not correct application of faith.
Manning, I'm glad you straightened out the fact that you have gay friends are are now bonofiably (sp) not a gaybashing friend of God. Unfortunately to hate someone, to take offense, to not forgive interrupts your faith, and is also a sin. That said, if you release those feelings and fogive, you don't have to invite them over for dinner. Releasing those feelings frees you up to worship and to praise freely, deeply, not hypocritically.
Who provides? Who enables? Who gives you the authority to counter the raging lion (i.e. Satan). Who? God does, He doesn't do it for you like waving a magic wand over your head, he gives you the authority. Just like Jesus had the authority and annointing of the Holy Spirit when He walked on earth.
Eric, we really need a Religion tab.
20 - Jeff
Quote:
"As long as you don't classify me as being in the same mold as Phleps - as long as you are actually able to see me in a different light than him - unlike a lot of the other posters here, then I'll give you credit where credit's due."
As much as I despise Phelps, I have to give him due credit for something he has that you don't Mark: he's got enough courage not to veneer his convictions with privisos and distractions so that people can find easy ways to accept his his hate-mongering and stereotyping as legitimate.
While I agree with you that Phelps is a violent, dangerous criminal that should be prosecuted, I reached that conclusion through a very narrow interpretation of the laws he's violated that have nothing to do with his political and/or religious views. He has committed assault and battery, crimes for which he can and should be investigated and prosecuted. Period.
Although you mention this, the bulk of your post seems to be directed against Phelps personal beliefs and his Constitutionally protected right to free speech. So he puts America down - that's his right. So he insults the memory of our honored war dead to make a completely unrelated political point and whore for the press - in America, that's his right, too. And if any consenting adult wants to sit in his congregation and be verbally assaulted - well, stupidity and the Bill of Rights cover a multitude of sins in the good old US of A.
The rest of youryour recent (American) history and (American) hate crimes laws.
You take Phelps to task for physically assaulting his infant son in his church, but go on to imply that the U.S. government's moves against the Branch Dividians - "who never bothered nor hurt anyone but their own community" - was somehow out of line. FYI, Mark: David Koresh was a pedophile and a polygamist - two crimes that are still crimes, even if they're only perpetrated against members of one's "own community." Phelps assault on his son is just as reprehensible and criminal as what went on in David Koresh's cult, not more so. Also, Mr. Koresh and his followers were, in fact, violating what few gun laws there are in the United States AND Texas at the time:
cultnews.com/archives/000491.html
crimelibrary.com/notorious_murders/not_guilty/koresh/1.html
Hate crime legislation does not include Constitutionally-protected speech in the United States. By all means, please invite Mr. Phelps to the UK and prosecute him under your country's hate speech laws, but please stop confusing the bredth and depth of your country's hate crimes laws with ours. And while you're at it, invite along any firey American mullahs you can find, too. Their words, like Phelps' words, are also protected here - and have yet to "lead to terror" as you assert:
aclu.org/studentsrights/expression/12808pub19941231.html
splcenter.org/intel/intelreport/article.jsp?aid=193
On the other hand, incidents of anti-Arab anti-Islamic violence in the United States are on the upswing here, and Islam-bashing occurs in the highest levels of our government with little or no consequence:
unitedforpeace.org/article.php?id=485
questia.com/PM.qst?a=o&d=5000665590
cnn.com/2003/US/10/16/rumsfeld.boykin.ap/
If you really want to see gays and conservatives (two completely seperate species in your world, I'm sure) work together against Phelps, how about you using your bully pulpit to take a stand for gay rights? Not "special rights," but the real so-called "gay agenda" - the right for two committed people to enter into a legal marriage, the right for two committed people to have and/or adopt and raise children in a loving, violence-free home, the right for a person not to be fired for simply being gay, the right for gay students to attend school unmolested, and the right for two committed people to bequeath property to one another and have hospital visitation rights:
hrc.org/Content/NavigationMenu/HRC/Get_Informed/Issues/Index.htm
Or, for more tongue-in-cheek takes on the topic:
sfgate.com
annoy.com/features/doc.html?DocumentID=100722
21 - Jet in Columbus
Re: 16. You're right Dave. Young gay men were singled out for having more physical and mental endurance than "normal" people, and so the Nazis gathered them up, branded them with Pink triangles and experimented with new methods of interogation using untried drugs and torture on them to see how effective they'd be on Allied POWs.
Medical and surgical experiments were also done to see if they could be altered to become "Normal". Also chemical warfare and torture methods were used on them specifically to see how long a man could endure before dying. It was when they finished with each young man that their serious experiences turned into sadistical perverted fun. Those that lived through the ordeal were shipped to outlying German Concentration camps where soldier were instructed to entertain themselves with the half dead and helpless men.
Exerpts from The Washington Post and other sources reveal the following examples...
Heinrich Himmler, director of Nazi Germany's secret police and network of concentration camps, declared that homosexuals should be eradicated.
On May 3, 1941, when Mr. Seel was 18, he was arrested by the Gestapo and tortured for 10 days. He was "tortured, beaten, sodomized and raped." He was forced to build crematoriums and to stand as the camp staff tossed syringes at him as if he were a dartboard.
The worst experience, he wrote, came when German troops marched a prisoner into the center of the yard, stripped him naked and placed a bucket over the man's head. Mr. Seel recognized him as his 18-year-old friend and lover. German shepherd dogs were unleashed on his friend, tearing him apart and devouring him before hundreds of witnesses.
From the University of florida’s website...
Between 5,000 and 15,000 of those convicted were sent to concentration camps. Guards at the Sachsenhausen Camp deliberately took the pink-triangle prisoners to a secluded building, tied them up and shoved a hose down their throats, turning the water on full blast until they drowned, Giles said. Then they turned the corpses upside down so the water drained out, making it difficult to establish the cause of death, he said.
The Nazis had a place called "the singing forest." Young men arrested under the Nazi’s anti-gay laws were incarcerated in a camp where homosexuals were slowy tortured in a forest clearing. Before their own deaths, they had to endure the distant screams of homosexuals hoisted alive onto hooks in the woods. "The howling and the screaming were inhuman."
Though everyone knows about the Nazi persecution of Jews, few are familiar with the suffering of almost 100,000 men arrested under Paragraph 175, the Reich’s anti-gay statute, and held in prisons. While the 10,000 to 15,000 homosexuals who landed in concentration camps were not slated for the gas chambers, they endured slave labor to see how long it'd take them to died of exhaustion or starvation, live castration to see how long they could stand the pain before passing out of having their genitals romoved and then were timed to see how long it took them to bleed to death, and surgical experiments to "further the world of science" since most gay men were in top physical condition, thus were prime candidates.
22 - Margaret Romao Toigo
The line between free speech and inciting violence is often very fine, indeed. But there is a far broader line between acting under coercion and/or duress and being responsible for one's own choices and actions.
Fred Phelps and his supporters demonstrate at soldiers' funerals to protest our military's "don't ask, don't tell [if one is homosexual]" policy, a policy which, ironically enough, is also protested by gay rights supporters -- albeit in a far different fashion and for the opposite reason.
However, Fred Phelps does serve his purposes by saying out loud, without regard for common decency or the sensibilities of those who read or hear him, what a number of those who want gay rights limited are actually thinking and feeling, but have the prudence to sugarcoat.
Of course, most of the folks who oppose gay rights would never so much as conscience acts of violence against gay and lesbian people, and many of them even oppose workplace discrimination against homosexuals -- the old "love the sinner, hate the sin" routine (as if us mortal beings made of mere flesh are fit to judge one another's sins) -- but most do not want gay and lesbian people to serve in our military or to be able to adopt children, and they certainly do not want to recognize homosexuals' right to civil marriage. I can understand why such people hate Fred Phelps.
Fred Phelps is a fully-cocked bigot, whereas they are only half-cocked bigots who live in perpetual horror of their bigotry being recognized through the facade of the "politically correct" veneer they so generously slather upon their anti-gay rhetoric.
And Fred Phelps threatens expose them merely because he is on their side. They own him just as the mainstream of other movements, parties, organizations and groups own their respective extremist elements. (The gay rights movement owns its radicals -- and those who oppose gay rights work very hard at making sure of that.)
Rights are rights and there are no compromises with regard to civil and human rights. There are no half-measures available for those people who have only halfway gotten over their discomfort over the fact that some people are homosexual.
Fred Phelps is certainly contemptible, but he's honest about his agenda. He doesn't speak pretty words about oppressing homosexuals, he simply says: "God hates fags."
Those who speak of "protecting and defending cherished traditions" might as well say the same thing, because their whitewash and polished talking points mean the exact same thing to those of us who think the injustices suffered by gay and lesbian Americans are far more contemptible than Fred Phelps exercising his First Amendment rights.
23 - Mark Bellinghaus
To #21Jet: You really stroke some important and absolutely realistic points, Jet. Growing up in Germany I learned about the Holocaust and always felt ashamed to even be a German. That is tough shit, I tell you that. But we never learned about paragraph 175 and it took over 50 years until Germany even aknowledged that almost ALL homosexuals that were transported into a concentration camp actually never got out of there alive.
But I do not agree that gays are hated these days here in America. I am sorry but almost every TV show, movie and theater play is about gay themes. People seriously are talking behind their hands about a "gay maffia" that is so powerful in Hollywood these days. No, I am not talking about the gay church "Scientology".
That is just my personal opinion of course, and please do not attack me again for just thinking a bit different. Okay?
You got amazing knowlege about everything, but you gotta let others, like myself believe what we read and learened.
Why is everyone so angy at Phelps? I thought he did good at the last Olympics! Didn't he bring back enough gold for the USA? lol
(I know I know it is another Phelps...)
24 - Mark Bellinghaus
Hey Mark Ed: I am trying to find out the **** and what they are standing for in the headline. Can you email me what it really stand for?
Maybe something like: "Fred Phelps Can Mown My Lawn"? Or something like that? I really need to know, please. Thank you.
25 - Joey
Interestingly, Ernst Julius Röhm (also known as Ernst Roehm in English) who led the SA (Brown shirts) which was responsibile for not only protecting Hilter, but carried out the early dirty work that caused rise to the movement, was a renowned Homosexual. He was later assassinated during a power struggle within the party. Luftwaffen Marshall Goering was reported to have had affairs with both women and boys... The Nazi's were renown drug users, brawlers, drunkards... a less than civilized lot to begin with.
Himmler probably had the dirt on everyone, and used it when necessary to coerce and manipulate.
William Shirer's definative work on the Third Reich lays it all out.