Fred Phelps' gang will picket Elizabeth Edwards' funeral service, because:
She was a supporter of gay rights and in 2008, while her husband was running for the presidency, declared that she believed in legalising gay marriage.
....
The church...released a statement condemning her for having fertility treatment and for questioning her faith after her 16-year-old son Wade was killed in an accident.
Westboro Baptist Church needs a name-change to Westboro Church of Stony Hearts or Westboro Church of No Mercy.
Anyone living in or near Raleigh willing to form a flash mob to collect money for a local food bank while singing hymns when the Westboro people are there? All it takes is a pitch pipe and a few willing singers with buckets for cash.
ReplyDeletePiskie, I expect that a counter-protest is already being arranged.
ReplyDeleteElizabeth Edwards did something very right to attract the wrath of those wretched people.
ReplyDeleteA 21 gun salute from the devil himself.
Ugh. These people came and picked my son's high school last year. High school! With signs that said that God hates them because their parents have broken their moral compass by telling them that God loves everyone. Can you believe that?
ReplyDeleteI don't believe these people ought to be called a church of anything. Maybe just the Haters Club. Or the Self-Appointed Haters Club. But not Church.
The gang picketed our church and several other churches in town a few years ago. It's not pretty. And they're loud, too.
ReplyDeleteYou are right to call them a gang.
ReplyDeletePenny, the Phelps picketers are gangs in the sense of the bad guy gangs in the Old West and in the sense of neighborhood gangs. Both types stir up trouble.
ReplyDeleteIf you read about what the Phelps family escapees have to say about Fred Phelps, it is horrible. He is abusive to both his wife and his children. His "church" is totally publicity-seeking and that seems to be their driving motivation.
ReplyDeleteIMHO, a Phelps picket is a WAY better sign of true holiness (of the deceased), than a canonization ceremony in St Peter's Square!
ReplyDeleteCathy, to me it's abusive to the children simply to have to live in such an atmosphere of hate and to be forced to participate in the ugly picketing.
ReplyDeleteJCF, amen!
Perhaps they should simply be called what they are: the Servants of the Father of Lies.
ReplyDeleteAnyway, here's what I said about them a couple of years ago.
http://simplemassingpriest.blogspot.com/2008/08/dealing-with-hate.html
Malcolm, I read your post from 2008. Counter-protests of one kind of another are happening when the haters appear.
ReplyDeleteA young gay man from our church followed the group around to the several churches where they picketed and knelt and prayed for the group during their activities. I look back and wish I had joined him.
Call me crazy, but I felt a certain compassion for the group. Imagine living your life consumed with their kind of hate. And the children! I don't minimize the hurt and damage the Phelps' gang cause, but what a terrible way to live your life.
For anyone who wants to know anything further about growing up in the Phelps clan, Nate Phelps, now estranged from them, has offered this:
ReplyDeletehttp://natephelps.com/12201.html
Cathy, Nate Phelps turned out to be quite a decent man in spite of his upbringing. I hear one of the daughters is a carbon copy of the father. She's a lawyer, so she knows exactly how far the protesters can go without breaking the law, and she knows exactly what the authorities are and are not allowed to do with respect to their protests.
ReplyDelete