Fred Phelps, Founder of Anti-Gay Westboro Baptist Church, Has Died

It's nice to speak ill of the dead, but Fred Phelps, the founder of the anti-gay Westboro Baptist Church, in my view deserves the same lack of respect that he heaped on others while living.  I would further add that, if there is indeed a Hell, Phelps is there now and is likely surrounded by many other "godly folk" that made religious based hate and bigotry a large part of their lives (e.g., Jerry Falwell).  If Phelps did anything while living, it was to help reveal the ugly face of fundamentalist Christianity.  KSN.com has news on Phelps' passing.  Here are excerpts:  

TOPEKA, Kansas - The Rev. Fred Phelps Sr., the fiery founder of a small Kansas church who drew international condemnation for outrageous and hate-filled protests that blamed almost everything, including the deaths of AIDS victims and U.S. soldiers, on America’s tolerance for gay people, has died. He was 84.

Daughter Margie Phelps told The Associated Press that Fred Phelps died shortly after midnight Thursday. She didn’t provide the cause of death or the condition that recently put him in hospice care.

Throughout his life, Phelps and the Westboro Baptist Church, a small congregation made up almost entirely of his extended family, tested the boundaries of free speech, violating accepted societal standards for decency in their unapologetic assault on gays and lesbians. In the process, some believe he even helped the cause of gay rights by serving as such a provocative symbol of intolerance.

Phelps believed any misfortune, most infamously the deaths of American soldiers killed in Iraq and Afghanistan, was God’s punishment for society’s tolerance of homosexuality.  

[S]ome gay rights advocates believe all the attention Phelps generated served to advance their cause.  Sue Hyde, a staff member at the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force, said plenty of churches and ministers preach a message that attacks gay people. But Phelps and his family had “taken this out on the streets,” forcing people to confront their own views and rousing a protective instinct in parents and friends of gays and lesbians.

He reserved special scorn for conservative ministers who preached that homosexuality was a sin but that God nevertheless loved gays and lesbians. When the Rev. Jerry Falwell died in 2007, Westboro members protested at his funeral with the same sorts of signs they held up outside services a decade earlier for Matthew Shepard, a gay University of Wyoming student who was beaten to death in 1998.
“They’re all going to hell,” Phelps said in a 2005 interview of Christians who refuse to condemn gay people as he did.

It wasn’t just the message, but also the mocking tone that many found to be deliberately cruel. Led by Phelps, church members thanked God for roadside explosive devices and prayed for thousands more casualties, calling the deaths of military personnel killed in the Middle East a divine punishment for a nation it believed was doomed by its tolerance for gay people.

“The Westboro Baptist Church is probably the vilest hate group in the United the State of America,” Heidi Beirich, research director for the Montgomery, Ala.-based Southern Poverty Law Center, told The Associated Press in July 2011. “No one is spared, and they find people at their worst, most terrible moments of grief, and they throw this hate in their faces. It’s so low.”

Among the many comments to the piece, one I liked suggested that Phelps be cremated and his ashes scattered along major gay pride parade routes. :)

"Anonymous" Tells Westboro Baptist Church: Picket Boston Marathon Funerals At Your Own Risk

Few domestic groups are more foul and down right vile than the hate merchants at the Westboro Baptist Church.  Common decency is an unknown concept for these folks and in the wake of yesterday's horrible attack on innocent civilians in Boston,  the always foul Westboro Baptist Church has been bleating and tweeting "THANK GOD FOR THE BOSTON MARATHON BOMBS!! Westboro Baptist Church to picket funerals of those killed."  It really doesn't get more foul, especially when one thinks of 8 year old Martin Richard (pictured at left) or his young sister who lost a leg in the blast, than this "Christians."  Thankfully, the group Anonymous has stepped up and warned the Westboro Church folks to picket the funerals at their own risk.  Here are highlights from Huffington Post:

First responders were still on the scene at Boston's devastated Copley Square when fringe hate group Westboro Baptist Church announced it would be picketing the funeral of Boston Marathon bombing victims.

In the message, the group states that "Massachusetts invited this special wrath from God Almighty when it was the first state to pass same-sex marriage on May 17, 2004."

However, hacktivist group Anonymous made it very clear that if the WBC tried anything in Boston, they would feel the full fury of the online community.
 
WBC, an anti-gay, anti-Semitic group, has made a name for itself as an ambassador of the offensive. Throughout the past few years, the Kansas-based group has threatened to picket everything, including the funerals of victims of the Tucson, Ariz., shooting, as well as those of American soldiers and the victims of the Sandy Hook massacre.

But in what could be described as an unintended consequence of the WBC's hatemongering, people across the country have come together to fight the group. In the process, the direct result of WBC protests is often more tolerance, more acceptance and a sense of community-wide solidarity.

After the group threatened to picket in Newtown, Conn., Anonymous launched a full-fledged attack on the WBC, publishing group members' personal information online, overtaking the group's main website and hacking the Twitter account of one if its representatives.

And when Anonymous announced plans to block the WBC from picketing Reddit co-founder Aaron Swartz's funeral, the group backed down at the last minute.

Personally, I hope Anonymous unleashes a full fury against the Westboro folks.  They are vile and disgusting.  And they are helping to kill the Christian brand through their incessant displays of hate and bigotry.  They are revealing the true ugliness of Christianity, especially in its conservative, fundamentalists variants.

God On Small Minded Bigots

Click image to enlarge.

A most likely distant gay cousin of mine in South Carolina shared this on Facebook and it sums up what I hope anti-gay bigots and professional Christians discover on Judgment Day, if there is one.  It would be true Divine justice.

Virginia AG Ken Cuccinelli Sides with Westboro Baptist Church

Being that he's a religious nutcase himself, it should be no surprise that Virginia Attorney General Ken "Kookinelli" Cuccinelli has refused to join in an amicus brief to be filed with the U.S. Supreme Court in a case brought by the father of a service member whose funeral was protested and disrupted by Fred Phelps and the Westboro Baptist Church of "God Hates Fags" infamy. Kookinelli is one of only two state AG's to not join in the brief and claims he is doing so in support of Phelps' right of freedom of speech. Apparently, Kookinelli supports free speech unless it falls in the realm of academic freedom or otherwise counters Kookinelli's extremist religious beliefs. It's a case of transparent hypocrisy for certain, yet all to typical of folks like Kookinelli who have ZERO regard for the right to freedom of religion for others. Indeed, Kookinelli believes that Virginia gays should be punished for nonconformity to Christianist religious views and deserve no employment protections. The full brief that Cuccinelli declined to support can be found here. Channel 12 news has coverage on Kookinelli's latest idiocy. Here are some highlights:
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Never one to follow the crowd, Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli has decided against filing an amicus brief in a case before the Supreme Court involving the controversial Westboro Baptist Church (WBC). Cuccinelli is one of only two State Attorneys General in the entire country who have declined the opportunity to support Albert Snyder. Snyder sued WBC after the hate group protested at his son’s funeral. Snyder’s son was killed serving in Iraq.
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Snyder won his first case, but the decision was turned back by the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals in Richmond, based on the 1st amendment. In addition to the overturned decision, he was ordered to pay the court costs of the Phelps family, the leaders of WBC.
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Snyder has gained the support of many politicians, including 42 U.S. Senators and every State Attorney General (including the District of Columbia) except for Maine and Virginia.

Counter Protesters Out Number Westboro Baptist Church 20 to 1

Fred Phelps' Westboro Baptist Church brought its nasty vitriol and homophobic hate to the Norfolk, Virginia area today and based on the first protests, the protesters protesting against Phelps and his band of hate mongers out number those condemning gays by a ratio of roughly 20 to 1 according to WTKR-TV 3. One of the first encounters was at Granby High School in Norfolk (at left). One Facebook page run by a friend of mine has details on the counter protests against Phelps here. Tomorrow, Phelps' crowd plan on protests in Virginia Beach nearly in Pat Robertson's backyard. Here are some highlights from Channel 3 News:
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If the goal of the Westboro Baptist Church was to convince Norfolk high school students to join its cause, the message fell on deaf ears. "I think it's wrong, God loves everybody and I think it's wrong that they are doing it," said Kwain Manley, Granby High School student. India Lynch, another Granby High School student, added, "It's horrible that people think like that."
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The Kansas-based church is known for spreading its anti-gay message by protesting near the funerals of military men and women. One of the church's leaders, Timothy Phelps, says today's counter-protests won't stop his followers.
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While Granby students say they did not want the protestors outside of their school, they say they are happy so many people showed up to the counter-protest. The ratio of Granby students to WBC protestors was about 20:1. "It's crazy. I mean, why be out here protesting crazy stuff against people who have the rights to do what ever they want?" asked one high school student.
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Norfolk school officials and Norfolk police had an increased presence outside the schools today, but the protestors on both sides were peaceful. The church will be outside Landstown High School in Virginia Beach Tuesday morning and at the funeral of Marine Lance Corporal Killin Dunn. He was killed in action in Afghanistan on February 18.
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The Richmond Times Dispatch is reporting that groups in Richmond are organizing counter protests against Phelps and the Westboro haters when they travel to Richmond later this week. Here are a few highlights:

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As the anti-gay Westboro Baptist Church group pickets throughout Norfolk today, Richmonders are rallying online to counter-demonstrate when church members arrive in Richmond tomorrow. A Facebook page started last Tuesday by the Virginia Interfaith Center for Public Policy has tallied more than 980 people who said they would demonstrate against the WBC in various places around the state.
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Another local group, started by four Richmond mothers, Pennies in Protest, has collected about $4,600 from 190 contributors in less than four days in existence. Cofounder Sarah Allen-Short said they got the idea from a New York synagogue that used the occasion of a 50-minute WBC protest to raise $10,000 by asking people to donate to the synagogue for every minute of the WBC picket.

Anti-gay Westboro Baptist Church Plans Virginia Protests

As the Richmond Times Dispatch is reporting, the professional haters at Westboro Baptish Church are bringing their foul stench to Virginia and plan on protests in both Richmond and the Norfolk/Virginia Beach/Portsmouth area. Counter protests are being organized by several groups with Facebook pages here and here. I hope locals will get out and demonstrate that haters such as these folks are not welcome in Virginia notwithstanding the Christianist that currently hold the offices of Governor and Attorney General. A list of locations where the hate group plans to protest and the proposed counter demonstrations is as follows:
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3/1/10- Norfolk
2:00-2:30pm Granby High School
2:45-3:15pm Bina High School (requests no counter-presence)
3:20-3:50pm Ohef Shalom Temple (requests no counter-presence)
4:10-4:40pm Norfolk Naval Station
5:00-5:30pm Temple Israel (requests no engagement with or acknowledgement of WBC)
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3/2/10- Virginia Beach
6:55-7:25am Landstown High School (administration requests no counter-presence)
8:00-8:30am Simon Family Jewish Community Center (the JCC has requested that there be no counter-presence)
9:00-9:30am Virginia Beach Convention Center
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3/2/10- Richmond
11:00-12:15pm Virginia Holocaust Museum (silent interfaith counter-presence organized by VA Holocaust Museum and members of the local faith community)
12:40-1:10pm The Jerusalem Connection
1:30-2:00pm UofR Hillel at the Jewish Community Center (the JCC does not want counter-protesters)
3:40-4:10pm Hermitage High School
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3/3/10- Portsmouth
6:50-7:20am Churchland High School
8:45-9:15am Torah Day School (requests no counter-presence)
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3/3/10- Virginia Beach
11:30-12:30pm Virginia Beach Convention Center
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3/3/10- Norfolk
2:00-2:30pm Norview High School

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Besides the anti-gay agenda of this despicable group, it is noteworthy that these bigots are also targeting Jewish institutions. These people are truly sick and demonstrate the nastiness of Christianism taken to extremes. Westboro puts out in the open what all too many of the Christianist believe but try to hide from the public. Here are highlights from the Times Dispatch:

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An anti-gay church says it will demonstrate in Richmond on Tuesday, and local community groups say they plan counterdemonstrations. Westboro Baptist Church, based in Topeka, Kan., has announced on its Web site a number of sites throughout Virginia that it plans to picket, including four in the Richmond region. Among other things, the church makes anti-Semitic comments about Jewish students and pickets funerals of American soldiers, claiming God has killed them for defending a nation of "sodomite hypocrites."
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Westboro "has a national reputation for promoting hate under the guise of being a functioning Christian church," said Simon Sibelman, assistant executive director of the Virginia Holocaust Museum. He said that representatives of the museum and the Virginia Interfaith Center for Public Policy, and others, will stand outside the museum at 2000 E. Cary St. on Tuesday at 11:45 a.m., when the Westboro Baptist Church says it will picket. About 300 people are expected so far, he said; a Westboro spokeswoman said fewer than 10 of their members will be in Richmond.
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Sibelman said, "There are people of conscience, of faith, saying, 'We will not tolerate this,' even to a handful of them." Jonathan C. Zur, president and CEO of the Virginia Center for Inclusive Communities, said several student groups at Virginia Commonwealth University are coordinating a 1:30 p.m. rally at the VCU University Student Commons outdoor plaza. "We want to give Richmonders a forum where they can affirm values of respect rather than focus on negativity," said Zur, one of the administrators of the Facebook page created for the rally.
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Mychael Dickerson, spokesman for Henrico County Public Schools, said county police will have extra presence Tuesday at Hermitage High.

Westboro Church to Descend on Key West

Earlier in the year the boyfriend took me to Key West - I had never been before - and I found it to be not only physically beautiful but also a place that in many ways lives up to it's motto of "One Human Family" through its tolerance of others and welcome mat for all. I was pleasantly surprised how gay and straight residents and visitors intermingled and all respectfully got along at places like the Bourbon Street Pub and La Te Da. However, Fred Phelps and his hate-filled followers might justify rolling up the welcome mat at least on this occasion. It seems the cryptkeeper as Pam Spauding calls him plans to demonstrate un-Christian hate at several locations around Key West, including at Key West High School and B'nai Zion Synagogue . If Phelps and his followers are examples what it is to be Christian, then paganism and non-Christian faiths have much to recommend them on that basis alone. Here are highlights of what KeysNet is reporting:

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Members of the Westboro Baptist Church in Kansas are bringing their unique blend of apocalyptic, homosexual-hating religion to the Southernmost City on May 22 for several planned demonstrations. But in a community whose motto is One Human Family, they're hardly being welcomed.

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Fred Phelps founded the church, which isn't recognized by mainstream Baptist organizations and is monitored as a hate group by the Anti-Defamation League, in 1955; since then, the congregation has grown to around 70, the overwhelming majority of whom are related to Phelps.

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At Key West High School, Roper-Phelps and her supporters are targeting the student Gay/Straight Alliance. "The curse of god has unfolded right in front of our eyes and that's making these young people absolutely good for nothing," she says. "They have no thoughts of God. Their destruction is on top of them and they don't see it coming. Worthless. Absolutely worthless, that's what the young people are."

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Asked about the slogan "One Human Family," which is intended to imply universal respect for folks with different lifestyles, Roper-Phelps unloaded. "I think that that is a doctrine of Satan. One group at Key West High School is planning a "Phelps-a-Thon," asking people to pledge money for every minute that Phelps is at the school. The money would be donated to the school's Gay/Straight Alliance.

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From a brief Google search, I located this link to the Key West "Phelps-a-Thon" if readers are interested in making a pledge.