A scumbag full of hate rots in the dirty earth now

[mahnmut.livejournal.com]

So, the master hater has finally passed on. The one who picketed innumerable funerals, displaying his trademark sign "God hates fags", and "Thank God for dead soldiers". The one who rejoiced at the horrible tragedy of 9/11, ascribing it to a vengeful deity who/which was supposedly pissed at those fuckin' heathens down there, living their godless life of wicked heathendom. Or something.

In the meantime, the actual good Christians and other normal people of faith or without faith or whatever, might be willing to find the inner strength and show this garbage of a human being what true humanity is about, and show his family the common decency he would never have deigned upon others, and refrain from responding to hate with hate, and thus interrupt this vicious circle of pain.

Wrote one LGBT journalist,

"...what if those on the receiving end of Phelps’s ideology did the opposite, which is to say, let him go quietly — and without protest — into that good night? Imagine the karma lesson that would be to all those who have supported Westboro Baptist."

Except, the world seldom works that way. There won't be any lesson. No one who has supported Westboro Baptist will ever poise for a split second and contemplate on this. Because those people are a closed book that can't be read. Its pages can't be turned. It's locked for the world. So, as noble as that hope is, nope, it ain't gonna happen.

I know it's supposed to be "Christian" to turn the other cheek even in the face of such ugliness and pure hatred, but the temptation to at least respond to his demise with a comment or two, much in his own style, is too great to warrant a simple hand-wave. So there. "God hates Fred Phelps - and he's about to find out how much".

That's not hate. It's giving the man what he truly deserved. Because he went out of his way to earn it.

Even in his old age, his arrogance and ignorance knew no boudaries:

Investigative reporter Joshua Kors interviewed Phelps in 2010 and asked him about his own death:

Kors: Have you thought about what will happen when you die?
Phelps: (chuckles.) I'm not planning on dying.
Kors: Well, everybody's going to die at some point. I'm wondering about your thoughts on going to heaven.
Phelps: The Lord himself should descend for me with the angels. I'm not looking for an undertaker - I'm looking for an uppertaker.
Kors: Describe that heaven for me.
Phelps: When the time comes, I will leave my old body. My new body will be a part of God. That's our inheritance. God says, "They shall hunger no more. They shall thirst no more." What's the matter with you? Don't you know the Bible? You are about the most ignorant person I've ever seen.

So there it is. Forgive me for the entirely human emotion, but even me the non-believer hopes that there's some kind of retribution awaiting such people at some level. But even if not so, there's this little consolation that the world has become a place one tad less evil with his departure. You gotta believe me. I've felt it in the Force.

If only he were the last of his kind...

Comments

[htpcl.livejournal.com]

Ugh, and I thought bigotry of that magnitude was almost a monopoly of us backward Balkanites...

We might have an excuse or two for being primitive retrograde Neanderthals - but that's supposed to be the First World, right?

I really don't know what to expect of this world anymore.

[luzribeiro.livejournal.com]

I envy the restraint of those parents who were burying their sons and daughters in the ground while this fucker and his horde of troglodytes were waving their signs praising the death of those kids. I swear I wouldn't have been able to hold myself.

And he's the one who's protected, while those people whom he so mercilessly harassed in their greatest moment of pain were completely helpless to do anything about it.

Fuck you, Fred Phelps. Burn in hell.

[airiefairie.livejournal.com]

Yes... Quiet, helpless rage is all that is left in such moments.

[anfalicious.livejournal.com]

I would have punched him in the face and gladly accepted the punishment civil society placed on me; for I believe in the rules of civil society, but sometimes they need to be broken in the name of punching a fuckbag in the face.

[yes-justice.livejournal.com]

[anfalicious.livejournal.com]

In the meantime, the actual good Christians and other normal people of faith or without faith or whatever, might be willing to find the inner strength and show this garbage of a human being what true humanity is about, and show his family the common decency he would never have deigned upon others, and refrain from responding to hate with hate, and thus interrupt this vicious circle of pain.


Fuck that, picket the funeral.

[yes-justice.livejournal.com]

Well that song is wrong in all sorts of wrong ways. Love it.

[oportet.livejournal.com]

Arrr! You beat me to it....

[mahnmut.livejournal.com]

Sorry, bru. Been holding this in for the whole day.

[pepsquad.livejournal.com]

these fuck sticks threatened to picket my nephews funeral as he was the fist service member to die in his area in the Iraqi occupation. I called a Virginia AIDS hospice and found one willing to accept donations in WBC's name. i had enough pledges to donate 100$ a minute. I then emailed this toad and his daughter, telling them about their wonderful donation they were making. they didn't show up the funeral which is good because i'm sure my dad would have killed at least one of them.

I hope that Allah has more mercy on this troll in the here after then Fred had for other people in this life.

[pepsquad.livejournal.com]

i face i think i'm going to make a donation to NMAids Services in his name in memorial.

[yes-justice.livejournal.com]

My condolences. I do like your style tho.

[nairiporter.livejournal.com]

Better things to do than picket the Fred Phelps funeral (http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/compost/wp/2014/03/20/better-things-to-do-than-picket-the-fred-phelps-funeral/)

So don’t dance on the grave. Don’t cheer. It’s an understandable urge. Instead:

-Stop picketing funerals at all, ever, full stop. It is a terrible way of getting attention.
-Play with a kid. Do not hand that kid a hateful sign. Again, this should go without saying.
-Love someone.
-Send someone a thank-you note.
-Call your grandmother.
-Take a nap.
-Make a big colorful sign that says something polite. Take it to a place that is not a funeral.
-Love your neighbor.
-Stand up for someone who is being shouted down.
-Treat people like people.
-Make a sandwich.
-Feel the urge to say something hateful. Don’t succumb. Know you’re better than that. You are.

If his life kept proving anything, it was that.

I intend to do at least half of those things. I know I can, and so can you.

[the-rukh.livejournal.com]

[luvdovz.livejournal.com]

Not only is he not the last of his kind; his kind actually holds a disproportionately large chunk of the public discourse hostage to their irrational, Medieval whims that have absolutely nothing to do with the original intention of Jesus' mission.

The true consolation in all this is the fact that those are a dying species. Sure, dying out very slowly, but bound to go extinct nevertheless. Perhaps not in our lifetime, but they will. And history will judge them with the whole severity that they've earned. Because they've chosen the wrong side of it.

[yes-justice.livejournal.com]

[ddstory.livejournal.com]

Some old douchebag died? Who gives two shits about that obnoxious moron. I hardly ever heard of him. Oh, and that Quran-burning imbecile, too. They're irrelevant footnotes in the manual of Ultimate Grotesquery.

[jerseycajun.livejournal.com]

I don't know what happened in the man's life that formed him the way he was. Can't imagine it was good. I also believe that simply by saying and doing the things we all know he did with his life publicly, that those things can't help but exact a price on one's state of mind. The man always came off to me as a man who was deeply, deeply not at peace with anyone or anything around him, least of all, himself. In interviews, he almost seemed compelled to lose his composure, as do others within the group. To actually be a man like that has to be some kind of masochism.

I say all this because I know that if I allow myself the 'luxury' of using the occasion of his death to dance on his grave so to speak, I risk affecting my psyche similarly. To say "it's okay to celebrate the death of those who 'deserve' it", is to forget that in matters of life and death very little actually comes about because of 'deserves'. To paraphrase "Unforgiven", 'Deserves got nothing to do with it'. For me, it's about preserving myself from becoming a little worse of a person for the sake of a little indulgent revenge-hating. It's impotent. And like the other great line from that movie, indeed, 'we all got it coming' (vis-a-vis death). If I can have one less thing in common with his life by the time I'm on my deathbed, I would want that to be it. That when given the opportunity to relish the death of another, even when it seemed like it was the most acceptable or appropriate time to do so, I chose not to. I only risk myself if I partake in it and I lose nothing for abstaining from it.

[mahnmut.livejournal.com]

That's noble indeed. What about all those followers of his doctrine, the ones who genuinely believe that other human beings should suffer eternal damnation simply for what they are - did some events in their lives also pre-determine who they are and what their views are to be? Did they have a choice to become different persons, once they were grown-ups and were no longer subject to indoctrination from their family and their environment? Or is that possible at all, to break away from the vicious circle of self-perpetuated bigotry?

I'm not sure I have clear-cut answers to any of these questions.

[yes-justice.livejournal.com]

Good riddance.



""We're not gonna take it
Never did and never will
Don't want no religion
And as far as we can tell
We ain't gonna take you
Never did and never will
We're not gonna take you
We forsake you
Gonna rape you
Let's forget you better still.""

[rick-day.livejournal.com]

according to Phelp's daughter "there will be no funeral".

So much for empty vengence *shrugs*

edit: source http://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/westboro-baptist-church-founder-fred-phelps-sr-dies-n57771

[mahnmut.livejournal.com]

No funeral? But that's so un-Christian!!1!

[dexeron.livejournal.com]

I'll just cut and paste what I put elsewhere:

We should be telling everyone who is cheering from the rooftops that the way to celebrate Phelps' death, if it should even be celebrated, is not to go protest his funeral, or loudly guffaw from the safe confines of one's room, but to go out and continue to fight for church/state separation, and donate to organizations that continue the struggle for LBGT equality. That's how we remember the man; by remembering the fight he awoke in so many and continuing to uphold it. That way even a man like Fred Phelps can have a positive legacy, even if it is one he'd have deplored.

I just feel bad for his son Nate, who is by all accounts a pretty cool guy, and will not never get the chance at reconciliation with his father.

[the-rukh.livejournal.com]

Though I did like the idea of showing up with "God loves you" signs.

[dv8nation.livejournal.com]

Celebrating that this guy is gone is just petty. You do yourself no favors being that low.

[mahnmut.livejournal.com]

There's no celebration. Do you see me dancing around and throwing confetti? I'm sharing a few opinions if I'm allowed.

Nevertheless, thank you for the high-horse lecture and for the concern about my "favors record", but I am what I am, I guess, and I'm not going to apologize for feeling the way I do.

[404.livejournal.com]

Phelps and his crew wanted publicity over everything, and you know the best way to commemorate his departure? By ignoring it.

[dexeron.livejournal.com]

Nate Phelps response:

“Fred Phelps is now the past. The present and the future are for the living. Unfortunately, Fred’s ideas have not died with him, but live on, not just among the members of Westboro Baptist Church, but among the many communities and small minds that refuse to recognize the equality and humanity of our brothers and sisters on this small planet we share. I will mourn his passing, not for the man he was, but for the man he could have been. I deeply mourn the grief and pain felt by my family members denied their right to visit him in his final days. They deserved the right to finally have closure to decades of rejection, and that was stolen from them.

Even more, I mourn the ongoing injustices against the LGBT community, the unfortunate target of his 23 year campaign of hate. His life impacted many outside the walls of the WBC compound, uniting us across all spectrums of orientation and belief as we realized our strength lies in our commonalities, and not our differences. How many times have communities risen up together in a united wall against the harassment of my family? Differences have been set aside for that cause, tremendous and loving joint efforts mobilized within hours…and because of that, I ask this of everyone – let his death mean something. Let every mention of his name and of his church be a constant reminder of the tremendous good we are all capable of doing in our communities.

The lessons of my father were not unique to him, nor will this be the last we hear of his words, which are echoed from pulpits as close as other churches in Topeka, Kansas, where WBC headquarters remain, and as far away as Uganda. Let’s end the support of hateful and divisive teachings describing the LGBT community as “less than”, “sinful”, or “abnormal.” Embrace the LGBT community as our equals, our true brothers and sisters, by promoting equal rights for everyone, without exception. My father was a man of action, and I implore us all to embrace that small portion of his faulty legacy by doing the same.”

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

People who ask those who condemn Fred Phelps for restraint often are noticeably silent whenever say, a Bryan Fischer opens his mouth and condemns all gays as Satanic agents of the Outer Darkness here to corrupt America and inflict natural disasters upon it. When they ask the Bryan Fischers of the world to show restraint, then they can sincerely do the same with Fred Phelps.

[dexeron.livejournal.com]

I know many people who routinely condemn Bryan Fischer (and loudly and often condemned Fred Phelps) who are today recommending restraint over this issue.

[brother-dour.livejournal.com]

I like the idea of donating to a pro-GLBT charity/rights group in honor of Fred Phelps. personally. Then mailing the thank-you card to Westboro.