Foes of Phelps fight ire with ire (thanks, Leilani!)
If those losers are going to be somewhere, there will be a whole lot more of us.
- “Grizzly” Bob Jeter
I’ve written extensively in the past about perennial DUMB@$$ Fred Phelps and his travelling band of inbred, knuckle-dragging troglodytes from the Westboro Baptist Church, where “Christian charity” is truly an oxymoron. I hate to pay any more attention to these fools than I absolutely have to, but this is a story that makes me think that the DUMB@$$E$ don’t always win.
Sometimes, good people really do band together to do the right thing. The right thing in this case is to prevent (as much as if possible) Phelps and his troglodytes from pouring salt into the wounds of those who are mourning the loss of a loved one. You might not be able to shut them up, but with enough motorcycles and enough people willing to barricade the mourners from the WBC maroons, you might just be able to keep them from disrupting the proceedings. (And just what is it that gives these folks the right to think that they can claim the mantle of Christ as their own? Feel free to clue me in here. I slept through most of my Sunday School classes.)
Most of us grew up being taught that it’s better to be thought a fool than to open your mouth and remove all doubt. It seems clear that this truth has never been preached by Rev. Phelps, because he and his fellow knuckle-draggers have no problem putting their ignorance, hatred, and intolerance out there for all to see. And these folks see no contradiction at all in calling themselves Christians? Man, chutzpah is truly an inexhaustible resource, no?
SOUTH HAVEN, Kan. — The Phelps family hoisted the same old laminated gay-bashing placards.
They made their same tired chants taking glee in a soldier’s death.
Another funeral, another round of pickets from the minichurch fixated on homosexuality.
Yet now that the Rev. Fred Phelps Sr. has moved on to flinging epithets at military martyrs, a few politicians have begun trying to silence him. Their success will depend on how carefully they mind free speech as they write their laws.
In the meantime, noise is met with noise.
Whenever the few protesters from Topeka’s Westboro Baptist Church shouted or sang Wednesday in South Haven, the earth trembled.
Any time they spoke up, the wrists of biker veterans twisted on dozens of throttles to strike the thundering chords of Honda and Harley-Davidson.
More than 200 bikers had made themselves into a chrome-and-black leather barrier. The 10 anti-gay picketers stood on one side, drowned out by the noise. Mourners arriving for the funeral of Army Sgt. Evan Parker passed on the other side.
“We’re supporting the family of a fallen soldier, yelled Don Barr of American Legion Post 138 of Caney. “And we’re telling these jokers ‚Äö√Ñ√Æ he jutted a thumb in the direction of Phelps’ picketers ‚Äö√Ñ√Æ “to get lost.
The WBC maroons call themselves “Christians”, and yet they see nothing wrong with taking glee in the death of an American soldier and the pain experienced by that soldier’s family. This is one of those unfortunate circumstances in which the freedom of speech and expression can seem like a truly horrible and poorly thought-out idea. Few reasonable people would argue against muzzling Phelps and his family of trolls. Then again, as I have so often argued, free speech is often offensive speech. Seldom is that truism more apt than in the case of Fred Phelps.
Thankfully, there are those out there as tired of Phelps’ brand of “Christianity” as I am- and they have Harleys, so when the WBC trolls begin their caterwauling, a chorus of motorcycle engines are there to drown them out. If you can’t shut them up, you might as well drown them out. Well done, gentlemen!
