Phelps protesting at military funerals

I have heard in the past about baptist pastor Fred Phelps and his family/congregation protesting at funerals of AIDS victims. I had no idea it that he has now been protesting at more than 100 military funerals throughout the US with picket signs celebrating their deaths. His reasoning? They are perverts that deserve to die because they are fighting for a country that is supporting homosexuality.

http://www.cnn.com/2006/US/03/06/btsc.lavandrera.funerals/index.html

The only encouraging thing that has come out of this situation is that a group called the Patriot Guard Riders has emerged to counter these protest. They are a group of bikers who mobilize at the protest to help protect the families and drown out the Phelps crowd. At at the most recent funeral protest in Dodge City, over 700 bikers showed up to escort the family and protect them.

Check out the video on the CNN page - it is very eye opening about how pervasive hate can actually be, and yet at the same time, that it can't prevail.

Thank goodness there are people who have responded in a non-violent way to protect the families. Check out their site: Patriot Guard

And this Phelps guy is a Christian? Makes you wonder WWJD?

No, he's not. He's a hater.

P2

Idunno. I'd shoot him.
I'm sure Jesus would... like... smite him in an interesting and befitting manner.

Don't forget, they are all a bunch of lawyers...

Oh, and Fred and his family have to breed for new members to their "church"

Very interesting and enlightening video. I've only read articles about them.

As I mentioned in another fora where this has been mentioned, I can't help but wonder, as unchristianly (the real thing, not Phelps' hatred barely covered by the tattered fragments of christian thought, used much like a drunk would use a lamp post, for support and not illumination) as the thought may be, what the folks bearing signs reading "Thank God for IEDs" would be thinking if members of their congregation were themselves treated to first-hand experience with being on the "wrong" side of an IED. Naturally, such an event would need to be crafted so as to not injure the true innocents.

Mind you, I am not advocating bombing Phelps' clan, I'm just commenting on a hypothetical situation that just happens to regard them.

(For those who may not know, IED=Improvised Explosive Device, aka a jury-rigged bomb made from whatever's handy at the time.)

Now that's a scary thought.

It really is, his daughter has 11 children...

you all know that Phelp's 'congregation', such as it is, is comprised mostly of his family. His eldest son (i think it was his eldest) escaped from the clan and refuses to have anything to do with him and has published either a book or an article about abuses at his father's hand.

This isn't a church -- its a cult.

That's why I put church in quotes

Why am I reminded of Mulch's earlier thread about the Dingleberry family? Could it be.......INBREEDING?

On a more serious note, I think Phelps is a poor excuse for a human being, much less a Christian. He makes me sick.

Yep, the stories keep escalating. And unfortunately, they're true.

Only just recently have the Phelps "visitations" come to international eye and due to the recognition, the Patriot Riders have tripled their entire national membership recently, and it just keeps going. (YAY!)

Phelps looks terribly unstable - he reminds me of a slightly younger (but not by much) version of Reverend Kain, the bad guy from Poltergeist 2 and 3.

The website for their so-called church which preaches all about the "hatred that God has for N.A." is full of propaganda and hate slurs that often grate the edges of racism. The guy's a shock factor, and if he's not careful someone, someday, is going to put him down for good.

The irony is...

The military are fighting to preserve the free speech that the Phelps use to slander them.



Oh, here, in the words of Steve Irwin, 'ave a look at this!

(I don't quite agree with it, but it's a read)

You know, I think he might have hit on something. I mean, remember Roy Cohn?

I think maybe some of the Patriot Guard should hold up signs that say: "We Forgive you for being Gay and Hiding it Freddie".

LOL - can you imagine???

If I am needed to join the PGuard here in FtLaud, it's what I'll do - provided it would not disrupt the funeral.

.

I really wish this jackass would come to a big city to do this. He's too chicken to leave the heartland. Let him come to DC. Its a sure bet he won't leave in one piece.

Reposting from another thread about these nutters about a month past...

The more you read about the WBC, the scarrier it is. Fortified compounds. A list of crimes fifty miles long, the LEAST of which involve this asshattery with funerals... a history of spousal abuse, near-incest, petty vengences, fraud, tax evasion, slander, libel, and harrassment... rampant hatred of the entire world (Homophobia? Hell, that's too mundane for these folks.

Some fun quotes from Phelps and his family:

"A good left hook makes for a right fine wife. Brethren, they can lock us up, but we'll still do what the Bible tells us to do. Either our wives are going to obey, or we're going to beat them!" - Phelps himself

""Oh I am so thankful that that happened. My only regret is that they didn't kill about a million of them. That's my only regret. Because England deserves that kind of punishment and this country does." - Phelps, on the london subway bombings.

"I'd sooner let John Couey, C-O-U-E-Y, who raped and buried alive little Jessica, I'd sooner let him adopt the kids, than turn them over to these fags and dykes! Is that plain enough for ya?" - Phelps, on gay adoption

"The Jews now wander the earth despised, smitten with moral and spiritual blindness by a divine judicial stroke...And god has smitten Jews with a certain unique madness...Jews, thus perverted, out of all proportion to their numbers energize the militant sodomite agenda...Jews are the real Nazis." - Phelps, excerpted from a rant that delved into the Holocaust.

"Deal with it, you idolatrous morons! The pope is in Hell. Westboro Baptist Church members are competent expert witnesses, having picketed hundreds of Catholic churches in all fifty states over the past fourteen years. We will bear witness on Judgment Day: Catholics are the meanest, most violent people on Earth, and their churches are filled with filthy fag priests. On John Paul II's watch, the Catholic Church became the CHURCH OF THE HOLY PEDOPHILES and sodomite feces and semen replaced bread and wine." - Westburo website on the death of Pope John Paul II.

And that's just a snippet. I honestly can't even stand to READ most of this drivel its so bad, and I don't want to repeat any more of it... It's evil given textual form, and I'm normally a person who thinks that words are never inherently bad.

Ok, I'll do it, I'm advocating violence against Phelps and his minions.

He's as much a Christian as al Quaeda activists are Muslim

His so called "church" came to my hometown recently to protest at the memorial service for the miners lost in the sago tradgedy . Needless to say, it was a huge flop for them, kept at a distance by local members of the patriot guard and college students from the campus where the service was held . The families never saw them, and the local news never gave them a second of coverage. Also the local and state police made sure they didn't disrupt the individual funerals, by keepeing a 2 block buffer zone from the services. In one of the towns, they were "escorted" from the city limits for disturbing the peace.
These people make thier livings by trying to provoke violence against them, then suing the parties involved. Simple low life scum.