Most Kansans are familiar with the name Fred Phelps. Most Kansans wish Fred Phelps wasn’t a Kansan. Kansas senate candidates this year promised to “crack down on Fred Phelps’s protests.” I hate to tell them, but they can’t crack down on Phelps. Maybe they could restrict protests to a certain distance from a cemetery to create a larger buffer for mourners, but they can’t stop Phelps from spewing his ridiculous opinions because, like it or not, he is protected by the First Amendment.
On more than one occasion Fred Phelps and his Westboro Baptist Church of Topeka have made the national news and prompted friends to ask me (a Kansan) about him. I calmly explain that he’s a minister with unusual and repulsive opinions who frequently protests military funerals and anything else that will get him attention. I tell people they can find out more about Fred Phelps at his website. And then I tell people my honest opinion: Fred Phelps is a jerk.
Recently a Florida church gained a lot of controversial attention for planning to burn copies of the Quran. Phelps and his daughter were mad and were interviewed in the newspaper. They weren’t mad because the other church planned to burn the Quran or because of the potential international backlash of doing so. They were mad because they had already burned the Quran at their church and nobody cared.
Here’s the tricky part of the whole issue. If anyone tries to pass a law to restrict Phelps’s ability to protest, I’d have to vote against it. There’s nothing anyone can do to stop Phelps from preaching his filth without limiting everyone’s freedom of speech. But fortunately the freedom of speech that protects Phelps also protects me when I say that in my opinion Fred Phelps is an un-Christian lunatic doo-doo head. The only think anyone can do to stop Fred Phelps is to stop giving him media attention and take away his forum. Just because he holds up signs and yells a lot doesn’t mean you have to put him on CNN or put his photo on the front page; that's what he wants! He’s like a stray dog; if you keep feeding him, he won’t go away.
Article comments
— go to most recent comments1 - Alan Kurtz
CORRECTION:
You write, "Fred Phelps and his Westboro Baptist Church of Kansas City."
In fact, Westboro Baptist Church is located at 3701 West 12th Street, Topeka, Kansas, about three miles from the State Capitol.
[Edited]
2 - Christopher Rose
Alan, Thanks for your eagle eyed error detection, much appreciated. However, please send any future such matters to the editors group email rather than posting them as comments. Thanks again.
3 - Alan Kurtz
I realize that you and the other BC editors go out of your way to shield these University of Oklahoma students from the real world of blogging. But sloppy writers should be publicly exposed for the frauds that they are, no matter how much BC's editors love to pamper them.
4 - Christopher Rose
No, Alan, you don't realise anything, you simply make stuff up to suit your prejudices.
In the real world, or at least the virtual world that we occupy, we editors don't go out of our way to shield anybody from most anything, except in the comments space where we don't like to see unprovoked nastiness.
We do have processes that make managing certain things easier though and the way to get mistakes fixed is by emailing the editor list, as previously explained.
As sloppy writing is not fraud in any sense of the word, it follows that your own writing in the preceding comment was sloppy, so consider yourself exposed as such.
However, it is not BC policy to be needlessly unkind to anybody, so please follow the convention in future and email any other errors that taunt your eye.
5 - Alan Kurtz
As usual, you are wrong. In this case, the label fraud applies because the blog's author presents herself as a Master of Professional Writing. No such "master" would make the beginner's mistake of not bothering to verify the city where Westboro Baptist Church is located--particularly not a "master" who also identifies herself as a Kansan.
6 - Christopher Rose
But that isn't what you said, is it, Alan? It seems silly to have to explain your original inaccurate critical remarks, particularly as you are now fully aware of the correct procedure, so I suggest we end this going nowhere fast exchange forthwith. In fact, however annoying it may be, I insist...
Christopher Rose
Blogcritics Comments Editor
7 - Ruvy
The Phelps Baptist Church of bigoted human trash won't have any power at all if it don't exist. Alan Kurtz was kind enough to provide the reading public with the address. I leave to others to imagine how to use the data.
Cheers!
8 - Alan Kurtz
Ruvy, if you want to use this forum to advocate church burnings, why not "man up" as Sarah Palin likes to say? State so in plain English. Exhort the arsonists to do their thing. And why stop at Westboro Baptist Church? As long as they're at it, the Klansmen or neo-Nazis or whoever takes up your call might as well burn down as many other churches as they can find. And when that's completed, they can start on synagogues. Right, Ruvy?
9 - Ruvy
Welcome to the end of the thought process, Alan. Advocating any specific violence will get me banned, first of all. Second of all, were I to advocate such specific violence, I would do it to a Jewish group - specifically so that yahoos like the KKK and Neo-Nazis get the idea never to mess with Jews. And I wouldn't do it on this site.
After having lived in a country where I get to see what hate does, my conclusion is not to go to court, but to take direct action where needed, in a judicious and careful way. Striking terror in terrorists is my cup of tea, Alan. Whether you choose to drink from it is your business.
The Phelps Baptist Church of bigoted human trash needs to be eliminated - before they actualize their hatred. In the right circumstances (like the economic breakdown you are on the verge of) the media will help Phelps along - pogroms sell papers.
I deal in reality, Alan. You can deal in rhetoric.
10 - Baronius
Why would the press want to get rid of Phelps?
11 - zingzing
well, that's a good question.
12 - Clavos
I would venture they wouldn't. Ol' Phelps sells a lotta papers.
13 - zingzing
the image that springs to mind is of newspaper money-men lining up for 69ing sessions with phelps.
14 - Alan Kurtz
Ol' Phelps sells a lotta papers.
Ridiculous, and of course completely unsubstantiated.
Fact is, the media have long done an exceptional job of not covering the Westboro Baptist Church. Two months ago, when Pastor Terry Jones of the Dove World Outreach Center in Florida announced his planned Qur'an burning on September 11, the WBC on its website denounced him as a false prophet and bitterly complained that they'd previously staged a public Qur'an burning but that the media refused to report it.
On September 9, when Pastor Jones caved to pressure and agreed to not burn the Qur'an, the WBC jumped into the fray and proudly announced that they would not only burn the Qur'an on September 11, but one-up Jones by burning an American flag, too.
On the appointed day, WBC did exactly that at their church in Topeka, which event was met with a resounding media blackout both nationwide and internationally. Only the Topeka Capital-Journal reported what happened, along with three local TV stations.
It's hard to conceive how the media could do a more effective job of ignoring Pastor Phelps and his clan than they've already done.
15 - zingzing
then again, phelps' phollowers get their tires slashed in oklahoma and it's all over the news, as the assholes couldn't find someone willing to fix their tires so they could get the fuck out of town.
and some other town in the midwest held an anti-demonstration against phelps' followers, just blocking them from view in a show of solidarity with a dead soldier's family.
anti-phelps is as good as phelps-phelps to the media.
phelps is phelps. anti-phelps is as good as phelps hisself.
it's easy to conceive of how the media could do a more effective job of ignoring phelps. they could ignore him. but they don't. maybe that's bad.
16 - zingzing
alan, you don't really think the media is avoiding phelps, do you? if so, how do you know of him?
17 - Clavos
FOX News
ABC News
18 - Baronius
I think the press is torn on how to report Phelps. They love the "rural Christian bigot" thing, because it fits their narrative. But the anti-Americanism doesn't. If the average reporter saw one group of protestors burning the Koran and a group of counter-protestors burning the American flag, he'd love it. If he could get the right camera angle, he could have both fires in the picture. He'd secretly (or openly) admire the flag-burners for standing up against American religious bigots. But what to do with one group that burns both? To report on that, he'd need to do some research (strike one) into lunatics (strike two), and the result couldn't be summarized in one sentence (strike three).
19 - Alan Kurtz
Sometimes events rise to the level where our news media are essentially forced to cover Pastor Phelps and his Westboro Baptist Church. For instance, the lawsuit against WBC that is currently being considered by the U.S. Supreme Court.
Where would you advocates of media blacklisting draw the line? Do you propose that media should not report a case before the Supreme Court merely because it involves the WBC?
20 - Alan Kurtz
Oh, wait, I've got it! What we need in America, "land of the free" & all that notwithstanding, is state-controlled media! Like in those really cool communist countries. You can bet the compliant citizens of China, Cuba and North Korea would never hear of a Pastor Phelps in their midst. Those enlightened societies know how to deal with their dissidents. Why is America so far behind the curve?
21 - Ruvy
What we need in America, "land of the free" ...., is state-controlled media!
You have a state controlled media. you Americans are just too stupid to realize it.
What you need in America is a culture that isn't so pathetically sick. IN ISRAEL, anybody who defamed the name of a dead soldier at his funeral would get his teeth knocked down his throat - because in Israel, WE RESPECT THE SOLDIERS WHO DEFEND US! There would be no law suits - and NO SYMPATHY FOR THE SICK BASTARD WHO DARED DEFAME THE NAME OF A DEAD SOLDIER AT HIS FUNERAL. You Americans have no respect for anything - except your pathetic porno-culture, which you defend endlessly, waving your worthless constitution around like toilet paper.
22 - Ruvy
Someone should have cracked that asshole Phelp's skull a long time ago. That is what garbage like him deserve.
23 - zingzing
ruvy, you should think about what you just said a little. it's either completely silly or completely ignorant. why do you think we tolerate phelps?
24 - zingzing
as to our "state controlled media," it's pretty incredible that we have such a lax state. they really are doing a poor job controlling it. or maybe they're doing a really, really good job. so good, in fact, that it appears to be pretty damn free. so many anti-government whack jobs are given air time. it must be a vast conspiracy that we are too blind to notice, right, ruvy? but you can see it from afar, and you can note its existence on an american website. and yet, the website continues to exist... god, they're good.
25 - Ruvy
why do you think we tolerate phelps?
He's still alive and his church is still functioning. He should be dead and his church gone. Therefore, you tolerate the bastard. The same goes for the KKK and the neo-nazis. They should be dead - killed off. They are very much alive. Therefore you tolerate them.
No tolerance of something means you get rid of it. You don't - therefore you tolerate it. And you have a sick culture for your alleged "tolerance". When you balance up the shit you tolerate against the things you bitch about to suppress - it's just plain sick.
Any problems reading the truth, zing? Remember. I left it cause I didn't love it. And every time crap like this comes up, I'll be right there to remind you what a sick culture you have, and why I have so much contempt for it.
Later!