Members of a church say God is punishing American soldiers for defending a country that harbors gays, and they brought their anti-gay message to the funerals Saturday of two Tennessee soldiers killed in Iraq.
The church members were met with scorn from local residents. They chased the church members cars' down a highway, waving flags and screaming "God bless America."
"My husband is over there, so I'm here to show my support," 41-year-old Connie Ditmore said as she waved and American flag and as tears came to her eyes. "To do this at a funeral is disrespectful of a family, no matter what your beliefs are."
The thing that caught my attention about this story is the way it was presented by the Associated Press. The sensational headline and beginning paragraphs obscures this fact, which was not presented until the end of the fourth paragraph:
quote:The church, which is not affiliated with a larger denomination, is made up mostly of Phelps' children, grandchildren and in-laws.
I don't know if AP was being deliberately misleading, but I feel that bit of information should have been presented much higher up in the article. Posted by Swampjedi (Member # 7374) on :
So in other words, it's a family cult?
Posted by FlyingCow (Member # 2150) on :
And the headline should read:
"Wackos: God Punishing GIs Over Gays"
Posted by Beren One Hand (Member # 3403) on :
Agreed.
Posted by Olivet (Member # 1104) on :
Is this the Phelps we've come to know so well through his protracted weirdness?
I try very hard not to actively wish bad things on anyone, but... how horrible.
Posted by Verily the Younger (Member # 6705) on :
"Homophobes Disrupt Soldier Funeral".
I mean, that's the real story, isn't it?
Posted by Vadon (Member # 4561) on :
Um, yeah, what those people did in general was wrong.
But I have to say this.
quote: The church members were met with scorn from local residents. They chased the church members cars' down a highway, waving flags and screaming "God bless America."
That's just awesome.
Posted by Enigmatic (Member # 7785) on :
This is Fred Phelp's church. There was a thread a few days ago about them heading to Sweden for a protest. They're pretty wacko and just protest constantly. They think anything and everything bad that happens is because of tolerance toward homosexuality.
Their thing about soldiers is especially ridiculous though. I'm pretty sure soldiers die because they're in a war, with people shooting at them at trying to blow them up. Not because their home country tolerates same-sex couples (and grudgingly, at that.)
--Enigmatic
Posted by The Pixiest (Member # 1863) on :
Headline should read "Phelps family harasses more people in their time of grief"
Actually, it probably shouldn't be a headline at all. These nutjobs are always harassing someone and it's always about homosexuality. They're fixated on it.
Pix
Posted by ambyr (Member # 7616) on :
I don't remember if this link has shown up on these boards before or not, but Addicted to Hate offers some fairly disturbing testimony on the history, motivations, and psychology of the Phelps' church.
Twisted in Topeka explains the origins of "Addicted to Hate," if you want to dig further.
[ August 28, 2005, 12:53 PM: Message edited by: ambyr ]
Posted by James Tiberius Kirk (Member # 2832) on :
Anytime this pops up, I try and figure out what to say. I've come to realize that words really don't exist for this sort of thing.
--j_k
Posted by Derrell (Member # 6062) on :
I made the mistake of going to Fred's web site. Why? I don't know. Maybe it was morbid curiosity, or a temporary case of stupidity. What I saw on his web site is truly disturbing. Posted by Jim-Me (Member # 6426) on :
If you think his website and his politics are disturbing...
do NOT read that article ("Addicted to Hate"). It literally shook me so bad that I had to call a close friend and sit on the phone a while to regain my ability to just get on with my day.
Ugly ugly stuff... I found myself wanting to kill this guy, not out of hate, but dispassionately, just like you would put down a wild animal that had killed someone just to make sure it didn't happen again.
I may not be right for a couple of days.
Posted by Megan (Member # 5290) on :
Jim-Me, I know what you mean. It's one thing to know there are people like that out there; it's another thing to read the story in detail.
Posted by Derrell (Member # 6062) on :
After visiting his web site, I felt like I needed to wash my mind out with soap. Posted by Belle (Member # 2314) on :
*points up at Pixiest's post*
What she said.
Posted by Shigosei (Member # 3831) on :
One of the guys from my church is going to a United Methodist conference that is promoting acceptance of all people within the church. He considers it a mark of honor that the Ku Klux Klan *and* Fred Phelps will be there protesting against it.
Phelps desperately needs medical help. What a waste to spend your life protesting in this manner. Sad, little leader of a sad, little cult.
Posted by Palliard (Member # 8109) on :
quote: ...and they brought their anti-gay message to the funerals Saturday of two Tennessee soldiers killed in Iraq.
OK, I'm not normally a violent person, and I believe everyone should have an opportunity to speak his peace, even if his ideas are patently bullshit.
But I've always viewed a funeral as a time to remember a person at his or her best. After all, it's the very last thing that's ever going to be said or done about that person. It's both unseemly and unprofitable to try to coax vengeance from the dead, and no one is served when you mock them.
And people that would do THAT, it should be legal to set on fire and watch them burn.
Posted by ambyr (Member # 7616) on :
Sorry, Jim-Me -- I had a similar reaction when I first encountered the article, and I should have posted a clearer disclaimer of the contents before giving the link.
Posted by littlemissattitude (Member # 4514) on :
I, too, started to read the link at "Addicted to Hate", but I had to stop before I got very far into it. I've got a pretty strong stomach, but that was just awful.
Posted by romanylass (Member # 6306) on :
There are no words, what a sick, sick man.
Posted by Jim-Me (Member # 6426) on :
'sok, Ambyr... I'll be all right... it just touched some very sore spots with me.
Posted by Dan_raven (Member # 3383) on :
Sorry Verily, but...
quote:"Homophobes Disrupt Soldier Funeral".
is slander against your normal paranoid homophobe. Most of them wouldn't do something this sad.
Posted by TomDavidson (Member # 124) on :
I'm not sure that Phelps is really a homophobe, either. While he reserves a certain specific outrage for homosexuals, he's mainly full of equal-opportunity hatred.
Posted by Jim-Me (Member # 6426) on :
I'm willing to bet a large portion of it is directed inward...
there's a sample of a rant that he supposedly goes on for hours with (according to his estranged sons)... not that screaming obscenities for hours on end makes sense at all, but what he is saying only makes sense if it's directed inward, because it seems to be largely anger at sexuality in general... which doesn't make sense with kids aged as his were at the time these rants were happening.
I'd be willing to bet, if you wanted a good picture of a soul in hell, this is it.
Posted by Telperion the Silver (Member # 6074) on :
*shudders*
Posted by sndrake (Member # 4941) on :
quote:I'm not sure that Phelps is really a homophobe,
(Picking on TomD here, but it's the culture I'm aiming at.)
"Homophobia" just doesn't seem to do justice to the likes of Phelps.
A couple years ago, I watched a comedienne who obviously shared this feeling. She compared "homophobia" to "arachnaphobia."
The people she knew who were arachnaphobic went to the other side of the room when they saw one, maybe even ran away.
What they didn't do was go looking for spiders, yell at them, torture them and kill them. (To the best of my knowledge, no one associated with Phelps has ever physically attacked anyone gay, but the "phobic" label covers a wide range of gay- hating behavior.
(Yeah, I know - the term allegedly is flexible enough to cover virulent hatred as well as "fear." But seems to me we should start calling "hatred" by its name rather than labelling it a "phobia.")
Posted by Jim-Me (Member # 6426) on :
So what do you do with someone like this? someone who feeds on the hatred of the world and considers it God's blessing in his life? someone so vilely evil to his own flesh and blood, and to himself, that he clearly has lost all conscience and humanity?
how do you stop what appears to be an incredibly horrific reign of what can only be described as "organized crime"?
Posted by Belle (Member # 2314) on :
Jim-Me when he does something illegal you arrest him. Unfortunately, if he doesn't break the law then we can only hope people ignore him and refuse to give him any acknowledgment whatsoever. I wonder how many more protests he'd do if the media quit covering him.
That's not to say people shouldn't be outraged at him - we should absolutely. But I don't know that we should be giving him such a stage and giving him the attention he obviously craves. My personal response to him is "You're a nut-job so you're not worthy of my time and attention." And my response to those families is "I share your outrage that this idiot would show up at a personal family-centered time that should have been set aside for reverence and mourning. My prayers are with you in your time of suffering."
Posted by Olivet (Member # 1104) on :
I made it through the bit where he was in Law school and constantly beating his wife. He made her stay with him so much that she she had to litterally sneak away to change the children's diapers and tie dthe babies in their high chairs, or set food out so the older ones could feed them.
She tried to leave him once but her sister couldn't take her and (was it nine or ten children, then?) and she had to go back. That was in the 60s where an abused woman didn't have any recourse if she didn't have family who could support her away from the abuser.
It's just ... sick. I couldn't read any more. It just made me angry. Like I said, I don't want to be a person who wishes evil on someone.
Posted by Jim-Me (Member # 6426) on :
quote:Originally posted by Olivet: It's just ... sick. I couldn't read any more. It just made me angry. Like I said, I don't want to be a person who wishes evil on someone.
It is and I don't either... and Belle, I see that what you put forth is the legal, law-abiding way to do this...
But I think it's safe to say that if, in over half a century, nothing has been done to put a stop to the man, then nothing will be... and I don't doubt the facts as reported by the sons...their stories and the way they carry themselves are consistent with abuse victims and the circumstantial facts support their cases and not the family's.
And clearly, if those things happened, there are crimes that have gone unpunished. This screams for someone to do something... but it would almost certainly be an act of vigilantism wouldn't it?
Posted by Olivet (Member # 1104) on :
Oh, don't tempt me. Seriously.
Posted by Jim-Me (Member # 6426) on :
Well, that's the whole thing, Olivet... it's not even "tempting"... it almost seems imperative, doesn't it?
I honestly feel like a coward for not making it a priority to find a way to challenge this man and stop this inhumanity.
Posted by Olivet (Member # 1104) on :
Yes. You know it does. It seems an affront to every decent person in this whole country that the body politic seems incapable of punishing him for his crimes.
Posted by romanylass (Member # 6306) on :
quote: Did anyone here actually finish the thing?????? I got to chapter two where he shaved his wife's hair off and felt physically ill and didn't want to read on.
That's precisely where I had to stop.
Posted by Jim-Me (Member # 6426) on :
I slogged through the whole thing. It's taken me most of two days to get through and I have literally had to stop for comfort and courage. The chapter about the sons' escapes is not so bad, the rest of it is hideous.
Posted by ElJay (Member # 6358) on :
I'm through chapter 5, didn't have time to finish. Probably will tonight. I'm actually not having a problem reading it dispassionately, and I think that may be because it's so over the top that my brain just won't accept it as real.
Posted by Sopwith (Member # 4640) on :
Hmm, I wonder if the man could be involuntarily committed to a psych ward. He openly exhibits the signs of psychopathy and sociopathy. And it wouldn't take much to consider what he says as communicating threats.
I'd love to see the guy be hauled off in a straight-jacket.
Or people could just counter protest -- stand in front of his group with banners that would block them from view and play music loud enough to drown out the hatespeach.
Posted by Fyfe (Member # 937) on :
I remember these people! They came protesting not too far from me, and a bunch of people from my school went to that county to do counterprotesting. Whenever they go protesting, they post a thing on their website saying that they're going to "the sodomite whorehouse masquerading as [insert institution's name]". They go to funerals all the time to picket and tell the grieving people that their loved ones are burning in hell--I remember they did it at the funeral of Randy Shilts, the author of the brilliant _And the Band Played On_, which chronicled the spread of AIDS. And although I don't know for sure, I'd bet money they did the same thing or something comparable at Matthew Shepard's funeral. They are absolutely wackos. I cannot even fathom how sick you would have to be to do something like this.
Jen
Posted by The Rabbit (Member # 671) on :
What I can't figure out is why Fred Phelps gets so much press time. There must be at least a thousand little church's consisting of one lunatic and his family in the US who never make the national news. It can't be simply because he protests everywhere. There are also hundreds if not thousands of protests around the country weekly that never make the national news.
Why has the press picked up on this guy? Why do they report all the inane things he does?
Posted by The Pixiest (Member # 1863) on :
Fyfe: Yes, he *did* protest Mathew Shepard's funeral.
Pix
Posted by Enigmatic (Member # 7785) on :
quote: Or people could just counter protest -- stand in front of his group with banners that would block them from view and play music loud enough to drown out the hatespeach.
This has happened on at least a few occasions that I know of. He was on a tour protesting churches that allowed homosexual members of the church. In the twin cities the counter protest was larger than Phelp's protest. iirc, they outnumbered him 2-1 or 3-1? There was also a counter protest in Ames, but I don't remember seeing numbers on the turnout.
--Enigmatic
Posted by dkw (Member # 3264) on :
One of the churched he picketed specifically asked people NOT to counter protest while he was there, but to show up after he left and help scrub the street. Posted by CORPSE-A-TRON (Member # 8560) on :
Seems to me there ought to be a limit to "freedom of speech". One doesn't shout 'bomb' in a packed theater, does one? How people use "freedom of speech" to protect their own biast hysteria is completely sick. News simply exploits the negative to bring out a response from the people. Ever notice some news casting airs merely a few positives to the mass quantity of negetives? Disturbing. I gave new up a long time ago(including newspapers). Not everything's negative, I know , but one hardly has to look for it and it's completely in your face unashamedly.
Posted by Jim-Me (Member # 6426) on :
No, we do. Or at least I do.
While I am inclined to give a lot of leeway in terms of political speech, there are limits to free speech, and speech which provokes violence is among that which can be limited under the first amendment.
If you go up to a random person on the street and insult them till they hit you, you are NOT engaging in protected speech. I'm just about 100% sure of this... am I right, Dag?
If I am, it begs the question, "why do judges keep giving this man permits to demonstrate?"
Posted by ElJay (Member # 6358) on :
Another church here in town sent out an email that he was coming and asked people to pledge donations for each minute his people protested, to use it as a fund-raising drive. The longer they stayed, the more money was donated to the church. I was at the service they were protesting, and the minister said they had actually meant it as a joke, but enough people asked for the total that they went ahead with it, and sent him a nice letter afterwards thanking him and telling him how much he had raised for the ministry he objected to.
Jim-Me, I think you're wrong. If you are just insulting someone, they have no right to hit you. And I don't want to curtail Phelp's speech any more than I want to curtail anyone else's.
Posted by Jim-Me (Member # 6426) on :
I don't have any problem with Phelps excercising his first amendment rights... I'm just unconvinced that insulting someone at their funeral (a private affair, after all) is protected speech.
I'm not suggesting that an insult gives license to strike someone, but that speech with the intent of provoking violence is not protected... which I think is true.... but it's been about 17 years since I had a law class.
Posted by Sid Meier (Member # 6965) on :
Reminds me of Scientoligists with all the lawsuits.
[ August 30, 2005, 01:38 PM: Message edited by: Sid Meier ]
Posted by CORPSE-A-TRON (Member # 8560) on :
My brothers and I have had this conversation out before and it seems to me that this country's lost the real purpose behind the 1st ammendment. However, I don't want to control anyone's freedom of speech as long as it doesn't resort to violence. They have a right to their own opinion, yes, but they don't have to do it in such a crude manner. Protesting at a funeral is something quite morbid. If violence is justified in stating someone's opinions, then the LA riots in the 90's would be justified. I agree with Jin. There's a limit to how far someone can push the first ammendment and I think there ought to be a stop to the abuse of it. It's there to protect our opinions, beliefs, and most importantly, to protect the truth. Which, I might add, isn't the best quality of most news syndicates these days. But then, I suppose you could argue that truth is just a matter of opinion. So, what do we do when there's untruth? I for one, know God doesn't punish countries with gays in it. Any HONEST Christian who practices their denomination would see that this is NOT why our GI's are dying. Therefore, this guy is just sick and I pity those who follow him.
Posted by The Pixiest (Member # 1863) on :
What Rev. Phelps is doing is political speech and it IS the reason behind the first amendment.
The first amendment protects political speech first and formost. The founding fathers had just rebelled against a government that didn't allow criticism and they wanted to avoid that most of all. That's why it's the FIRST amendment. It was the most important thing to them.
That being said... I think Rev Phelps needs *serious* psychological counselling and his entire family needs to go through deprogramming.
People like Rev. Phelps makes me wish I believed in Hell just so I could see him go there.
Pix
Posted by TomDavidson (Member # 124) on :
quote: So, what do we do when there's untruth? I for one, know God doesn't punish countries with gays in it.
*blink* How do you know this? I'm not saying you're wrong, mind you, but how do you know? Posted by The Pixiest (Member # 1863) on :
I didn't say he should be forced. I said he needed it. It's his choice as to weather he gets it or not. (which means he won't.)
Posted by Jim-Me (Member # 6426) on :
Pixiest,
saying that "God hates fags" is political speech... going to a funeral and screaming directly at the family that God is punishing their child for his/her immoral behavior is harassment, plain and simple. I would think that a family's right to grieve privately, without harassment, supercedes the Phelps family's right to political speech in that time, place, and manner... and what I'm seeing in the other thread supports this, I think.
Posted by The Pixiest (Member # 1863) on :
It's no different than anti-abortion protesters outside a planned parenthood clinic. And that's been found to be covered by the first amendment.
You could probably pick them up on disturbing the peace though. I'm sure they get pretty noisy.
(or the people who own the graveyard could keep them off the property.)
Posted by Jim-Me (Member # 6426) on :
they are often limited to being a certain distance away, though, and, rightly, arrested when they violate those limits.
edit: I feel obliged to add that I was an anti-abortion activist for several years and I never once witnessed anything like the lathered screaming I constantly hear portrayed. Not saying it doesn't happen, saying that there is plenty of pro-life voice without that type and that, honestly, I'd have no problem with any organization known to be as harassing and abusive as Phelps' family facing stricter limits of time and place in their protests.
[ August 30, 2005, 03:30 PM: Message edited by: Jim-Me ]
Posted by CORPSE-A-TRON (Member # 8560) on :
Err... sorry Tom, bad wording.
Posted by CStroman (Member # 6872) on :
I think they probably were kept out of the cemetary, but they were probably protesting just outside.
I don't agree with what they did, but if we made laws based on what the majority thought was "tastefull" alot of things would be illegal that currently are, for better and worse.
Posted by Olivet (Member # 1104) on :
The really weird thing about this, is saying that soldiers die because their counrty tolerates gays.
As far as I know, the soldiers themselves were not gay, just dead. I mean, protesting at a gay man's funeral is crude and horrible, proof of complete moral bankruptcy. This is THAT, with a side of crazy.
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