Idiots Protest in Alabama

OK, gotta mention this. We have received word from the news that the idiots from the Westboro Baptist Church (in Kansas) are planning on picketing a funeral here in my town tomorrow for a soldier that died in Iraq. I am sort of debating going and having a look, but then again, going to a funeral is never something I look forward to doing. However, taking the time to maybe converse with one or two of these "so called believers" might be ... well ... entertaining from a Pastor's point of view.

I think the very same group came to my town to do the exact same thing. Where's their respect? I am all for free speech but these guys cross the lines on so many levels.

It would be very enlightening to hear what they have to say.

I also have very strong religious beliefs, so I struggle how people can use religion to justify such invasive and cruel behavior. Imagine grieving for a loved one only to have some stranger tell you your son or daughter died in sin. It would be difficult for me as a bystander to simply ignore such behavior and not react. Times like this really test your ability as a Christian to simply ignore such distasteful behavior.
[V]

Ahhh man not these AGAIN! I seem to be hearing about them everywhere! Any gay site i go on they are plastered all over, and now WWS.

I think they are pretty awful people. I dont understand how they could do the things they do. I mean, its nothing new for Religion to say stuff about us Gays, but to protest at someones funeral, who has died for their country and a cause, its just awful. Especially when you hear they are spreading low life rumours about these soldiers aswell, while their family is having to be the person they love! Thats just sick!

URGH - these people get me agitated.

Although i did read something quite interesting about them on a gay site a few weeks ago. A few gay guys from the site went to meet them at a protest to see what it would be like. I will post part 1, not part 2 though (part 2 is too gay orientated and will not be of interest to this site).

Anyway, TJ, it would be cool if you could go and meet them and write an article like this, but instead of being from the fags point of view, from the "normal" Christian point of view? I would like to read it!

Anyway heres that article i mentioned. Just skip it if you aint interested....

My Weekend With Westboro, Part I: Fag Soldier In Hell
by Brandon K. Thorp



At the beginning of 2004, I was working in Fort Lauderdale as the Assistant Editor of a queer magazine called Quintessential. Fort Lauderdale has its share of gay bar mags?????????cheap little publications with no content but a billion ads for escort services and sensual massage and naked men with big muscles who want to clean your pool?????????but we aspired to higher, finer things. We wanted to be Smart and Edgy. I don't know that we understood the meaning of those terms, but we definitely liked the sound of them.

In the pursuit of Edginess, we decided to see if someone from The Westboro Baptist Church, of www.GodHatesFags.com fame, would be willing to write an editorial for us. The church, headed by the Rev. Fred Phelps and attended by his many children and over fifty grandchildren, had long been famous for talking about gay folks, but to our knowledge they had never tried talking directly to gay folks. Would they be interested?

They were. We sent them a letter, they sent us an article, and our magazine promptly went out of business. Strange and ugly things happen in the publishing world all the time. I do not blame our bankruptcy on the Jesus People.

The Westboro article never saw the light of day, but I had Shirley Phelps-Roper on my email list, and it was hard to forget her. The Westboro Baptist Church is a ?????????Primitive Baptist????????? congregation near Topeka, and gay people first started hearing about them in 1989, when the church began putting up warning signs near Gage Park in their hometown. They did this because they had learned that Gage Park was a ?????????cruisy place????????? (as Damron described it), where men could go to troll for anonymous sex in the woods. Since Rev. Fred Phelps and his family were avid bicyclists, they spent a lot of time in Gage Park, and were worried that their children might witness something untoward or worse.

This was not the genesis of Fred Phelps????????? involvement in public affairs. As a teenage preacher, Phelps had ambitions of going to West Point and beginning a military career, but wound up going to Bob Jones University and becoming a lawyer instead. Degree in hand, Phelps began tackling cases that no other Topeka lawyers would touch?????????representing penniless black families, winning victories for civil rights in Kansas long before such things became chic. No one remembers it any more, but there was a time when Phelps was seen as a minor civil rights hero.

Fred got disbarred in the mid-1980s, but his law firm continued under the leadership of five of his children?????????Jonathan, Shirley, Rebekah, Rachel and Margie. Then came the Gage Park craziness, and what started as a showdown between gay folks and The Westboro Baptist Church in Kansas had, by the early 90s, escalated into a constant media blitz and ideological war, perpetuated by the Phelpses, that enraged every sodomite and supporter who ever even caught wind of it. Fred Phelps and his congregants were picketing the funerals of AIDS victims, carrying signs that said things like ?????????AIDS Cures Faggots????????? and ?????????God Hates Fags????????? and ?????????Fags Doom Nations????????? and that sort of thing. Then they picketed Matthew Shepard?????????s funeral, thus earning a little nod in The Laramie Project. All of this activity?????????which, by some estimates (including their own), amounted to more than thirty different protests in some weeks?????????made the Phelpses very few friends and a whole country full of enemies. Somebody planted a bomb in one of their cars, nearly killing one of Fred Phelps????????? daughters and her small children.

Clearly, WBC (as we shall call them from now on, because I am sick of writing ?????????Westboro Baptist Church????????? every thirty seconds) had somebody?????????s attention. When, in 2003, they announced their plan to erect a memorial in Matthew Shepard?????????s hometown, reading ?????????Matthew Shepard entered hell on October 12th, 1998, in defiance of God?????????s warning, ?????????Thou shalt not lie with mankind as with womankind; it is an abomination.????????? Leviticus 18-22,????????? it was all my friends could talk about for a week. This probably doesn't mean that the Phelpses were household names?????????it's just that my friends are all gay, and tend to keep up on these things.

Though there is no way to be sure, I do not believe Straight America knew a whole hell of a lot about WBC until last year, when the church began protesting military funerals.

The basic rationale was this: The Unites States had ?????????sinned away her day of grace,????????? and ?????????turned her back on the Lord her God????????? by allowing homosexuality?????????and other, less severe sins?????????to run rampant within her borders. Sure, lots of Americans thought homosexuality was wrong, but they weren't doing a whole lot to stem the tide, and even America?????????s most outspoken anti-gay activists seemed to fall short of Biblical standards of morality. America was blasted and doomed, and defending her was a sure-fire way to get yourself landed in the lake of fire.

Now, picking on homosexuals is something that middle America can understand, but picking on the military? That?????????s too much! Out came screeching soccer moms and Vietnam vets with Harleys; out came the families of the slain. Even Fox News got in on the action?????????Julie Banderas, Sean Hannity and Alan Colmes have all interviewed Shirley Phelps-Roper in the last year, though ?????????interviewed????????? might not be the right word. Mostly, they just yelled.

That?????????s where WBC is at. Various states are passing laws to ban protests near funerals, and the ACLU has even stepped in to defend WBC?????????s right to free speech. That?????????s ironic, but we?????????re not going to get into it. The important thing to realize is this: A church with just under a hundred members, most of whom are related to Fred Phelps in one way or another, has somehow managed to raise America?????????s collective ire in ways that only Pearl Harbor, the assassination of John F. Kennedy, and 9/11 can compete with. Over our next two issues, I will tell you the harrowing story of my weekend with these people, who actually turn out to be . . . well, kind of nice.


The Funeral of Kyle Jackson

In January of this year, the announcement went up on GodHatesFags.com that WBC intended to visit Florida to do a smattering of protests. There was gonna be one at ?????????Palma Ceia Presbyterian Church,????????? one at Newsome High School, in Lithia, and one at the School District Building in Hillsborough County. These are all in and around Tampa, a four-hour drive from where I live.

I wrote Shirley Phelps-Roper, and asked if it was okay for me to come along, take a look, and interview a few of her people. She agreed, and I began assembling a team.

The plan changed at the last minute. Twenty-eight year old Chief Warrant Officer Kyle Jackson, of Sarasota, died in a helicopter crash in Iraq on January 13th, and WBC decided it was more important to picket his funeral than a congregation of Presbyterians. The funeral would take place at noon on the 22nd, two hundred and thirty miles from our point of origin in Boca Raton.

So we set out before sunrise that morning?????????Matthew Sanders, Paul Riney and I, a bleary-eyed band of sodomites in search of enlightenment and information and Jesus. We were armed with a video camera, a cooler of Arizona Iced Tea, and a stun gun. We hoped for the best, were prepared for the worst, and I was scared shizless. Would I witness a riot? Would I be maced? If I stood with the WBC contingent, would a bunch of angry veterans mistake me for one of the Jesus People and shoot me in the face?

We made good time, arriving at 10:30 in the morning. Already, there were security details hovering around the site. When we made to enter Phillipi Estate Park, where the funeral was to be held, a police officer stopped the car.

?????????Hey, officer! I'm Brandon Thorp?????????my team and I are here to interview the folks from Westboro Baptist Church when they show up.?????????

He looked at us doubtfully. The eldest of us, Paul, was 24, and we were all very young looking for our ages. We looked like high school kids.

He asked: ?????????Do you have any, ah, press credentials??????????

?????????No, officer?????????we?????????re not with any particular outfit. I'm a freelancer.?????????

?????????Uhuh. I see. Well, the protest is going to be over there?????????????????? he pointed vaguely towards the facility?????????s entrance??????????????????Do you see the yellow tape? That?????????s where they?????????re gonna be.?????????

We had a while to wait before the scheduled craziness, and we were hungry. We drove around, we grabbed a quick lunch, I locked my keys in my car, we called a locksmith, I paid the locksmith $80.00 (!), and we arrived back at the park at 11:45.

To this day, I do not know if Phillippi Estate Park is a cemetery or a country club or a nature preserve or what. When we arrived at 11:45, we didn't even bother going in. We parked across the street, marched over to the yellow tape, and waited.

We were jumpy. Walking from the car, Matthew Sanders had noticed a bunch of men in full body-armor, cradling submachine guns and holding walky-talkies to their heads. ?????????That?????????s a SWAT-Team,????????? he said.

?????????Bullshiz.?????????

?????????No. Seriously. That?????????s a SWAT-Team.?????????

From where we stood at the yellow tape, at the corner of the Phillippi driveway, there were many more armed people in plain view. There were a dozen mounted police on enormous horses, along with another dozen cops on foot, wandering around, looking bored or nervous or scandalized. I asked one of them if we were standing in the right place. He said we were.

Across the street, there was a church with a big display out front: ?????????God Bless Kyle Jackson.?????????

The funeral procession arrived at Phillippi Estates around 12:05?????????a long row of cars, extending as far down the road as we could see. The procession was endless. Two minutes, three minutes, four minutes ticked by, and the procession had not ended. Then came the Harley Davidsons?????????more than I?????????d ever seen in a single place. Two hundred? Three hundred? Impossible to tell. I didn't know why they were there, but it was an intimidating sight.

?????????Jesus,????????? I said to Paul, ?????????Kyle Jackson must have had some very heavy friends.?????????

?????????I think these are the bouncers,????????? he said. Turns out, he was right.

More than a thousand mourners had entered Phillippi Estates before we caught sight of the Westboroans. They were in a van, following the funeral procession down Tamiami Trail. The vehicle moved slowly as they hopped out the sliding door on the side, one at a time. The first was a kid, maybe fourteen years old, wearing a bright blue shirt with ?????????God Hates Fags????????? silk-screened on the front of it in big white letters. He was followed by two women, and then a little girl. They were a quarter mile away, walking quickly.

Paul was handling video that day, and as he tried to get a fix on their shirts, we were approached by a cop.

?????????You need to move over there,????????? he said, pointing to the other side of the driveway.

?????????But we?????????re supposed to talk with the Westboroans,????????? I said, forgetting for a moment that cops are constitutionally unable to communicate on a rational level.

?????????Right!????????? he said, ?????????That?????????s fine. But you just need to go over there.?????????

?????????We?????????re journalists. We?????????re just going to talk to them, and observe.?????????

?????????Great!????????? said the cop, ?????????You can do that over there.?????????

?????????But they?????????re expecting us. They know we?????????re here, they?????????ve agreed we can stand with them.?????????

?????????Right! Okay! Go over there!?????????

At that moment, he actually began shooing us towards the other side of the driveway, and that's when the Westboroans finally showed up. They began unpacking their signs.

?????????Alright,????????? I said, ?????????Do you mind if I just say ?????????hi???????????????????

?????????Go for it,????????? said the cop.

The Westboroan closest to me was a pretty woman, maybe in her mid-forties, with long brown hair and a God Hates Fags shirt. ?????????Excuse me,????????? I said, ?????????Are you Shirley??????????

?????????That?????????s right.?????????

?????????Hi! I'm Brandon,????????? I extended my hand, and she shook it.

?????????Hey. Nice to meet you.?????????

?????????Ditto. Listen, the police are telling us that we have to relocate to the other side of the driveway.?????????

?????????Oh. Alright.?????????

?????????We can talk later??????????

?????????Yeah, that sounds fine.?????????

And so we relocated. I was unhappy. The people we?????????d driven two hundred miles to see were now thirty feet away, and what looked like the entire Sarasota police force was standing between us.

?????????shiz,????????? I said.

?????????We can chat with some of these people,????????? said Matt.

And it was true. We could. A bunch of high school kids had gathered on our side of the driveway, and they were hoisting a big banner that said ?????????Only Light Can Banish Darkness/Only Love Can Banish Hate.?????????

?????????That?????????s so boring,????????? I said to no one in particular.

?????????Come on,????????? said Paul, ?????????That?????????s a lovely banner.?????????

?????????It's silly!????????? I said: ?????????Maybe only light can banish darkness, but you can banish ?????????hate????????? with just about anything. Psychotherapy, booze, MDMA, leather . . .?????????

?????????Well, we shouldn?????????t just stand around,????????? said Paul.

?????????No. I guess not.?????????

At that moment, a big biker walked by us. There were a lot of them milling around, I realized?????????maybe thirty or forty bikers who?????????d elected to stand guard outside the park. I tapped this particular feller on the shoulder. He spun around.

?????????Excuse me, sir,????????? I said??????????????????do you mind if we ask you a few questions??????????

?????????Who?????????re you?????????? He spat this question out. I had the eerie sense that he desperately wanted us to say something like, ?????????Oh, we?????????re here to tap-dance on the graves of a few fag soldiers,????????? just so he?????????d have a chance to beat us to a bloody pulp. This was a tense man.

?????????We?????????re journalists,????????? I said, and he seemed disappointed.

?????????Whaddya wanna know??????????

?????????Well, anything you've got to say. What brings you here, what do you think of all this, that sort of thing.?????????

?????????I think it's sick! That boy in there died defending these fools????????? rights, and now they?????????re here, picketing his funeral with these signs?????????it's disgusting!?????????

?????????Well,????????? I said, ?????????To be fair, he did die defending their right to be disgusting.?????????

?????????Yeah! That?????????s right! I wish I could go over there and . . .?????????

The biker began growling, and I figured the conversation was over. I muttered something along the lines of ?????????thank-you-for-your-time-sir????????? and began walking away, when he grabbed me by the shoulder and whirled me around.

?????????Are you with them?????????? he wanted to know.

?????????No. We?????????re gay.????????? His hand flew off my shoulder, and he began wiping it on his pants-leg.

?????????Oh. Uh, nothing wrong with that. I guess. But these people . . .?????????

I noticed that the biker was wearing dog tags. ?????????You?????????re a veteran??????????

?????????That?????????s right. Vietnam, three tours. Been everywhere from Ho Chi Minh to Danang. Never killed anybody worse than these chuffers.????????? He spat on the ground.

Hard to respond to that. I thanked him for his time and began watching the Westboroans. They were clustered together, short folks in front, tall folks in back, holding their signs up to passersby, who appeared unable to believe what they were seeing. One sign said this:

FAG SOLDIER IN HELL

Paul asked, ?????????Was Kyle Jackson gay??????????

?????????Probably not,????????? I said. ?????????I think they mean he was a, uh, ?????????fag enabler,????????? as they say.?????????

?????????Was he??????????

?????????I don't know,????????? I said. I didn't know anything much about Kyle Jackson. Nobody out here did. All the people who knew were inside.

We talked to a bunch of high school kids; they told us how awful the Westboroans were. We talked to another biker/vet; he told us the same thing.

Some more bikers showed up, and they had no use for the protest out front?????????they were headed towards the funeral proper. As they made their entrance to the park, a male Westboroan?????????whom, I would later learn, was named ?????????Tim??????????????????called out in a high-pitched, mock-effeminate voice: ?????????Nice chaps, leather fairy!????????? Engines died; enormous men rose off their hogs and began moving towards the Westboroans.

?????????Oh shiz,????????? I said, ?????????He shouldn?????????t have said that. The Westboroans are doomed.?????????

But just then a bunch of miserable-looking cops dismounted their horses and formed a protective line in front of the Jesus People. Cursing, the bikers backed down, got back on their bikes and went inside, gunning their engines.

I was relieved, but also a little disappointed. We had come here to see action, to get in on the ground floor of the eternal war between rabid faith and cool secularism; madness and reason; Good and Evil. Instead, we were watching a bunch of atavistic Christians in shorts and tee-shirts sing ?????????I'm ashamed to be an American/Where the fags can freely roam????????? and receive dirty looks from gray-haired men who took too much acid in the 60s and now work as car mechanics during the week and scream through the streets in silly leather costumes on the weekends. At some point, some of the high school kids with the banner started singing ?????????All You Need Is Love.????????? They only knew the chorus. We fidgeted and looked at the Westboroans????????? signs and tried to discern their rationale. In addition to FAG SOLDIER IN HELL, there was FAGS DOOM NATIONS, THANK GOD FOR 9/11, THANK GOD FOR IEDs, AMERICA IS DOOMED, and that old standby, GOD HATES FAGS. These were all pretty self-explanatory, so we got bored quickly. The Westboroans seemed to feel the same way?????????there was too much space between them and the general populace to engage in the kind of high-energy one-on-one proselytizing that constitutes their strongest suit. No words could be effectively exchanged, so they stood with their signs, sang songs, and chatted to each other. There were little children in their entourage. Sometimes they held the children, kissed their heads. If it weren't for their striking apparel and Day-Glo signs, you would almost think they were any average family, milling around on a street corner and doing the things any average family might do.

This all lasted for an hour. Maybe less. Then the Westboroans were packing up and dashing towards their waiting van, a block away. Matt and Paul and I ran after them.

We arrived at the van panting, just as the driver started the engine. A woman stepped out. She had a soft voice and a kind face and she handed me a bunch of papers. I think this was Rebekah, one of Fred Sr.?????????s youngest, but I'm not sure.

?????????I'm sorry we couldn't talk,????????? she said, ?????????But I've got these for you. If you read these, you?????????ll find out everything you want to know about the hearts of the people in this church.????????? I took the papers and she got into the van. The Westboroans were off.

I said: ?????????chuff!?????????

Why havnt these people been snuffed out yet? I would of thought it was an easy target for some gun nut, just pack an AK-47 and go shooting the place up

i get the pleasure of these idiots coming to my HS to protest the play "the laramie project" next friday. shall be interesting....if im not here for a while after the 3rd of november, im probably in jail. ;-)

Nice article J, thanks for finding that. For those that may want more info, here is a "in their own words" article I found:

http://www.answers.com/topic/westboro-baptist-church

Well, I am anxious to see what the average 'Bubba' is going to say to this here in the deep south. You see, there is some tolerance here in the south, but crap like this just does not fly. Now, please do not confuse tolerance for weakness, as you will see why.

We had a police officer shot and killed two weeks ago and there a rumor about those folks coming down here for his funeral. The "unofficial report" on the news here was that it may very well be "ok" to declare open season on the Westborians should they decide to come down here and protest the funeral. Now, I am not a strong supporter of violence, but these idiots showing up in the Bible Belt is not really in their healthy interest to do so. 12 'Bubbas' with shotguns and the licenses to carry them openly is not something I would want to see ... although it is not uncommon here especially as deer season is preparing to rev up in Alabama.

Edit: The Mayor of the town here has expressed his extreme displeasure with these people, and will be increasing police presence in the area should they decide to come here. Their whole purpose is one of ... well ... idiotic controversy. I firmly believe that as soon as the media stops covering them, they will go away. However, there is always a silver lining. If anyone still in school is looking for an opportunity to write a paper on the 1st Amendment, here is a perfect opportunity to show the exploitation of what used to be "freedom of speech".

TJ I highly suggest you do this.. It may not come out well but I think you should really what really makes them tick. What really gets me ticked is the fact that they have younger kids in on this!

[jayman]

dude, come on... its a train wreck... you GOTTA check it out

Tcon, if you take out every last one of them I'll post your bail. [:P] Those bastards are the most heartless pos's and they should be ashamed of themselves and then some.

.... I don't see me shooting anyone .... but it would be fun to just ask them to glance at the LOVE discussed in the New Testament.

[coolbeans326]

^

[jayman]

these guys just piss off everybody. they piss me off because i believe in freedom of speach, and assembly. they abuse this right, also i don't like people thinking that i'm so stupid that i'll take their philosophy seriously. .
but the people they really insult are the people they are portrayed to represent...
nobody likes them... this war is very popular with the people they claim to represent. for them to go to the funerals of good people who got killed in this war,wether you believe in it or not, is just really really bad taste.. beyond bad taste... horrible...
fortunately everyone know's they're full of it.. they need to build a compound somewhere so we can do a waco on them....

Well, my view on this matter is kinda the same as you guys, but I also see it in one other way. To start off, I am anti-religion/anything religious. While I do see these guys are causing fatty disturbances, disrespecting others, and completely stretching their free will, it just helps prove my point - religion creates more harm and conflict than it can ever make up again. So, I can see the glass as being half full too. (no just kidding, it's more like .1 for them for helping prove my point/99.9 against them for being iq-equivalent to bush).

Originally posted by jayman


these guys just piss off everybody. they piss me off because i believe in freedom of speach, and assembly. they abuse this right, also i don't like people thinking that i'm so stupid that i'll take their philosophy seriously. .
but the people they really insult are the people they are portrayed to represent...
nobody likes them... this war is very popular with the people they claim to represent. for them to go to the funerals of good people who got killed in this war,wether you believe in it or not, is just really really bad taste.. beyond bad taste... horrible...
fortunately everyone know's they're full of it.. they need to build a compound somewhere so we can do a waco on them....

YES! WACO WACO WACO!!!

hmmm...hopefully it will happen. tho we could always drop a nuke on their church and then say it was NK, that gets rid of the biggest dipshizs in the world, and gives us an excuse to go to war with the second biggest dipshiz in the world. hehe.

Well, they never showed up. It was a big funeral - the procession was more than 1 mile long and the whole town stopped and paid their respects as the hearse went by ... but, no protesters to be found.

[Coasterkidmwm]

Open up a can of some Tconwell whoopass on them.

Got any biker gangs in your area willing to help out like they have in the past?

EDIT: Here is why you should read an entire thread before posting in it folks^

Yes, you should read it all first ...

The Patriot Guard was here for the funeral ... classy to see these fellows out here making sure that these funerals are respected.

[jayman]

those guys RULE!!!!!!... that's awesome..

Maybe those crap-for-brains got some sence nocked into them...

[coolbeans326]

^ unlikely.

I know what Kenny would say to Fred Phelps and his minions.

"Shut up you blood belching vagina!"
A latter to heaven
6th season

[coolbeans326]

^ nerd