So here’s what’s on Candy’s palm pilot for this morning:
“I’m here at ass-early o’clock because I’m leaving at about 9 to attend the funeral for a soldier who was recently killed in Iraq. The Westboro Baptist Church (headed by the inimitable Fred Phelps) is going to wave signs and scream at the funeral. Their theory is, God is punishing America because it condones homosexuality.
I’m going to a counter protest: a bunch of us are going to do our best to put ourselves between the family and friends and the assholes waving signs, and to show quiet, dignified support for the grieving family.”
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it now: damn, that Bitch is cool.
Good on you, Candy.
You are combating filthy, bilous hate with dignity and grace. That takes strength.
Me? I’d be inclined to introduce Mr. Phelps to my fists. Dude is old. I could take him.
Ignorance spreading hate. Makes me sick. These people protested several funerals here. At one, bikers, lots and lots of bikers, came out and parked between them and the funeral.
Rinda, I believe the bikers would be a group called the Patriot Guard Riders. Apparently, they were formed for that very purpose.
And Candy, that’s a wonderful thing to do. I wish I could be there, too, because what the Westboro Baptists represent is hatefulness beyond words, and hatefulness like that cannot be allowed to stand.
The world needs more people willing to put themselves out for others. Hat off to you, Candy.
Rinda, that is enough to make me want to ride a motorcycle, just so I could park it and send some exhaust towards the Westboro Buttheads.
Check out their website: it’s enough to make a bitch cry with pride:
Patriot Guard.org
That’s just so wrong—to use a soldier’s funeral (or anyone’s funeral, for that matter) as a platform to spread hate.
Good for you, Candy.
Oh for pity’s sake. Jesus is on the funeral side of things. What makes Phelps think Jesus will have time to spare him and his apes a glance while there are hurting people with real problems to comfort?
The world is too nuts already to allow folks to use people’s pain like that.
[This is coming from a non-nutty Christian who is deeply ashamed of those who march under the banner of her faith and then fuck it up like this.]
Makes me want to wave a sign “stop blaming your bigotry on God-God is not a bigot”
I think it’s safe to say that the Bitches are with you, Candy.
I totally agree with you, Emily. God has a special place in Hell for asswipes like Phelps.
>>God has a special place in Hell for asswipes like Phelps. <<
Wouldn’t you like to be a fly on that wall?
Phelps is the same ass-wipe that protested at Matthew Sheppard’s funeral! This guy pretty much puts the face on radical right-wing religious nut jobs.
Once again, Candy is showing that you can use words like man-titty and still have class.
With you in spirit, girl.
:coolgrin:
You’re the coolest, Candy!
Could Phelps find a more dispicable way to promote his sick agenda? Jeez, I wish someone would slip some super colon-cleansing mickies in his and his co-horts drinks so they’d shit themselves on the way home from their protest.
Please let us know how it all turned out.
XOXOXOXOXO
You go, SB Candy! I think that ‘SB’ should be translated as SupahBitch. 🙂
Phelps and his kind bring new meaning to the comment from Ghandi: “I like your Christ. I do not like your Christians; they are so unlike Christ.”
(which should be amended to ‘some of your Christians…’—unfortunately, some of them give the rest a very, very bad name!)
I don’t know how this gasbag gets the publicity like he does, since his entire congregation is just made up of his family?! Why do they seek him out? Is the shock factor that interesting? It’s not as if he has the Political clout of Jerry Foulwill or Marion “Pat, I pray for Supreme Court Justices deaths” Robertson.
Go Chica!!
Thank you for doing this Candy!!
I grew up in Kansas, which unfortunately is (or was the last time I knew) the the state Fred Phelps and his hatemongers call home. When I was in college, his followers would protest at the annual Kansas State (KSU)/University of Kansas (KU) football game because, in his mind, KU was full of, … well I can’t even say the word. I went to KSU, but I hated that he felt the need to protest our in-state rivals in this way. I hadn’t heard he’d “graduated” from protesting at football games to harassing the families of our soldiers. There are no words for a person like him and to this day I remain embarassed that my home state is associated with such a monster.
I consider myself a Christian. Fred’s actions have nothing to do with the religion I know.
Almost a decade ago, I read this in a newsgroup:
“I have no problem with God; it’s His fan clubs that irk me”
—Rick Jones
Like others have said, the Phelpsian Buttnoids [tm/pp SB] do not represent the God I believe in, but do give a bad name to most who believe in Him.
I lived right down the street from the assholes a few months ago. Margie Phelps kept calling me, apparently wrong number. Rude bitch would announce her name, demand to speak to so-and-so and when I’d tell her she reached the wrong number, yet AGAIN, she’d slam the phone in my ear.
I was always amazed at the tolerance that Topekans exhibited towards Phelps and his clan (they were very visible, had a huge banner that said God Hates America across their house. They lived all on one street like a compound, with a shared fenced back yard). They have money and send their children to law school at Washburn.
I talked to one at the courthouse. I was reasonable and mild, but she started yelling and cursing because I was disagreeing that all gays should be killed now instead of waiting on God’s judgment, if any. This short-tempered, bordering on psychotic woman told me she had seven children!
I was always amazed at the intolerance that many Topekans exhibited, period. I’m really happy to be out of that place.
What. Is. WRONG. With. People? Good for you, Candy. It’d be a shame if one of the asshats fell on the tip of your boot. Repeatedly.
Gosh, wouldn’t it, MaryJanice? Especially if those boots had steel toes.
*boggle, boggle* I think my brow is permanently creased.
Are they even reading the bible? Are they just going all Old-Testament on the world? Because that’s fine and dandy if it gets your panties wet, but you can’t call yourself a Christian. The New Testament’s kinda important in that definition, if I remember correctly. Huh.
It makes as much sense as me wearing a Militant Vegetarian shirt, standing on a platform outside a farmer’s market, gorging myself on bratwurst and screaming that farmers are cruel to aliens. None of those things have anything to do with the other. But I do love alien bratwurst. And the hot snow cone guy at the farmer’s market. And shirts.
Go, Candy!
I think this falls into the category of a right wing strategy that defies all sense. Am I understanding you right? He hates gays and lesbians and decides the best place to protest this is at the funerals of men who’ve been killed in Iraq? Huh?
And don’t forget, Shirley was on the Howard Stern show blaming the Tsunami and Katrina on gay people.
Go Candy! You rock! These people make me physically ill. No matter your opinions on any social issue, it is NEVER appropriate to protest and disrupt a funeral!
Way to go Candy & PGR!
I wish there were more people like you, and all the other smart bitches here, rallying for a family in mourning. I don’t understand such petty, spiteful, sick-ass people; nor would I want to.
Thanks for the well wishes, all. The event had the best possible outcome: the Phelpsian Buttnoids didn’t show up—at least, not at the church. (My friends and I couldn’t make it to the cemetery, though we did drive by to see if there were any Buttnoids there, and there weren’t.) The Patriot Guard was there in all their tattooed, leather-chapped, bandana-wearing, flag-bearing glory; my friends and I, all smooth-faced and puny, dressed in formal funeral wear, stuck out like sore thumbs. It was cool; they were all very friendly, and I even got a chance to hold a flag for several minutes when the guy next to me had to go to the bathroom. I’m not at all a patriotic type, and hell, I’m not even American, but I have to admit, I felt good holding that flag. The gesture felt important.
All in all, though it was somewhat anticlimactic, it was a great opportunity for us to show respect to somebody who’d given his life to his country (he was only
23
22 years old, which made me so very sad) and I’m more than happy that the grieving family was spared the spectacle of hate-mongers spewing ignorance and bile.
I’d do this again in a heartbeat.
Good for you Candy. You’re doing your part to repair the world, one SB righteous act at a time.
There’s a columnist I really like, Leonard Pitts, who suggested once that Fred Phelps is actually a closeted homosexual. It was a lovely column.
And I think something I read on this sums it up best: Not sure which is going to be more surprising to these people, that they are in hell or that all the gay people aren’t.
Heh, every time Shirley’s on his show, Howard ends up yelling at her, “I hope you have a gay child!”
“There’s a columnist I really like, Leonard Pitts, who suggested once that Fred Phelps is actually a closeted homosexual. It was a lovely column.”
I did not read that article, but I totally agree with the sentiment. Heterosexuals who are secure in their own sexuality are not freaked out by gay people.
How funny is it that the nicest thing any of us can say about the Buttnoids is that they may actually be gay. In fact it puts a lovely new spin on the word “Buttnoid”. Is it Google-Bomb time again?
Way to handle a situation with grace. Have you read Marriage: A History? It is a non fiction book that traces the history of marriage. Turns out (and I don’t want to shock anyone here) gay marriage doesn’t threaten traditional marriage. Also gay marriage has been around for centuries.
There’s a memoir by two of Phelps’s sons about the abuse that went on in that household; publication was blocked, but it (and the story of why it wasn’t published) is available online here. Everything I can find about it suggests that it’s legit, and given what I know of Phelps, it’s not a big stretch.
Good for you, Candy. He’s the lowest of the low. I’ve busted a few blood vessels by reading about him over the years.
I wish I had thought to do that when he came to our town a few months ago for the same sad purpose.
If I could drop just one person into an active volcano…hmmm, him or Ann Coulter?
I’m late but even though you thought it as anti-climatic I have a strong feeling that the family and friends of such a young and heroic man appreciated the fact that you stood and showed your respect.
Hats off.
Hatred – I just don’t get it.
CindyS
I read this post right after I heard the news that the Supreme Court nixed the Administration’s concept of a “trial” for Guantanamo prisoners, and it got me thinking about how disengaged our society is from dissent as a critical and routine element of democracy. Voting rates are incredibly low. Political apathy levels seem to correlate positively with economic growth. People either seem afraid to speak up or almost recklessly defiant in their commentary these days (Anne Coulter, anyone?). Consequently, we seem to have moved into this social and cultural space where things that should be the subject of routine, public political debate simmer and roil until they are so polarized that they can only be performed in the most dramatic of ways. I agree with those critics who warn that the true power of terrorism is in catalyzing a democracy to turn against its own values and principles. And THAT, IMO, has nothing to do with God.
annElise, I read that expose about Phelps, and I am honestly sickened. Those poor kids. That man defies all my best efforts to ridicule, because I can’t think of anything horrible enough to say. Petty, shallow, abusive, greedy, vitrolic—these aren’t insults, they’re character descriptions. I feel the need to scrub my brain now. How can he not spontaneously combust from the heat of all that hatred? You know, sometimes it isn’t enough to know that karma is waiting to kick his ass. Sometimes, we’d all like a ringside seat to the smackdown.
GOOD FOR YOU for showing up to stop the hate! I’m very glad he didn’t show up. I’d hate a Bitch to be exposed to that sort of toxic filth.