The news report is here.

The video is here.

Warning, click at the peril of your own faith in humanity.

I can deal with nuts preaching such rediculous hatred without too much bother. The thing that gets to me is how much he has indoctrinated the children who live on the compound. A startiling thing is how NORMAL they sound when they arn't sprouting their religious bile. They seem friendly enough unless they think you deviate from their views.

It's... incredible.

Yes I do know about the history of Phelps and the Westboro Baptist 'Church'... I still can't get my head around it though. They want everyone in the world to die if they don't follow their views... They are just one step away from the terrorists we are suppossed to be fighting for THEIR benefit.

You see, I wonder what'd happen if I went down to Topeka and picketed them. You know what? I think I will.

Seriously though, I'm sick of this bullshit. I'm sick of people parading themselves to be Christians being nothing more than sick minded hate mongers. JESUS WAS LOVE PERSONIFIED. Period.

It's people like this who need to be bombed.

I found his expose (WHY will my accents not work?) and decided to share it. It's long, so it boils down to this: he's a very messed-up man with a screwed-up idea of religion who beat, abused, and brainwashed his wife and children.
Christianity is based on love and forgiveness, but people like him throughout history misinterpret lots of the Bible and use it to justify their hate and violence. The Crusades come to mind. The excuse was that the Christians should have Jerusalem. They won the first Crusade through sneaky fighting and lost all the rest. They were frustrated, so they wound up sacking Constantinople (an allied city) and killing thousands of Jews (people who were maintaining friendly relations. People like Fred Phelps are just as twisted and cruel, and I have no doubt that he would kill every homosexual he could find if he thought he could get away with it. He's the scum of the earth and it really bothers me that people listen to him at all.
His biography is here. A lot of it is from the perspective of one his sons.
If you picketed him he would denounce you his twisted little flock as a gay (only he'd probably say fag) emissary of Satan. I'd love to see thousands of gays picketing his church. He's probably have a coronary and die, leaving the world a better place.

Unfortunately if you picketed his compound you would probably be arrested for harrassment as it is on private property.

He can pretty much get away with what he's doing and no one can touch him. If you do you are infringing on free speach.

No, it's not a happy little place to be in.

...If he thinks that America is such a horrible place, why doesn't he move?

Because he believes that the UK is full of "sodomites" and he won't move to Iraq because Saddam's been caught. Explore Calantyr's link and take a look at the letter the disgusting idiot sent to Saddam. Basically he can get away with all the hate speech in America when it would be harder to get away with and get less publicity somewhere else. Wish he would move to outer space with no space suit, but it's unlikely to happen.

"I may disagree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it"

Yeah, I think that he's psycho, and wrong, but who is the majority to bring down anybody? Until he causes damage to somebody, his rights SHOULD be defended. And yes, I know that he has caused damage, and he should be punished for that, but I don't think that anybody's views should be censored.

Oh, I'm bored of Phelps now. He's said pretty much anything he's got to say. You know that when disaster strikes he's going to be there to praise God for making it happen, because he's insane. I really don't understand why he gets so much attention. He's just a ranting crazy man. I don't write huge news exposes about drunks who hassle me for change.

Because in a rather strange way he interests me. There. I said it. I'm a bad person. I like having things to rant at and a crazy evil brainwashing old man fits the bill.

I had never seen him on tape before, or his demented little tribe. It's... unnerving.

Oh, and he won't go to any other country because they are all pits of hell so he might as well stay where he is. They're either full of soddomists or heretics. Or both. Usually both.

We hate/dislike him because he hates and offends so many people. And arguably he distresses/diminishes the lives of those around him by actively seeking them out and hurling abuse. We arn't running around encouraging people to hate him. We arn't running up to people in the streets telling people they will burn for eternity as their tortured bodies (and those of their families) are used to sexually pleasure demons in hell. But instead simply expressing our personal views on a private forum.

It's not a question of hating someone just because their views are different, but hating someone who goes out of their way to make everyone elses life a misery.

When those views are actually damaging the lives of others then surely that's not censorship but defence of your community? I agree with the principle of free speech entirely, I just don't think that it applies to him because he has lost that right through his actions. It sounds like the guy should be prosecuted for his behaviour anyway, and as such I wouldn't describe this as an issue of censorship but of one where the man should be given the rights accorded to an average prisoner, which generally don't involve being allowed to run hate-based websites!

He's certainly caused a lot of emotional damage. Whenever a prominent gay living near him dies, he and his little cult picket the funeral and yell that the person who died is an evil faggot who's going to hell. Apparently it's supposed to help save the soul of the recently deceased, but he preaches that all gays are doomed to hell unless they become straight. His pious little excuse is junk, and all he does is upset the family and friends at the funeral. Free speech is an excellent right, but I believe he's yelled at several private and closed funerals. I can't find the website now. Bah. He does deserve to be prosecuted for a number of things, especially child abuse, but he's brainwashed most of his children to back him up. The brainwashed ones out number the ones who left home and are willing to testify, and there's not much evidence now that they've all grown up. I believe that several of the children have scars, but those can be explained away as childhood accidents, unfortunately.
By the way, don't visit his stupid website if you've just eaten. The concentration of hatred is sickening.

I didn't mean his compound, per se. I meant more his pickets. Wherever he goes, I follow with contrary signs. And a bull horn.

I usually love having conversations with the religously-certain. I find it very interesting to hear people's logic of faith. I do question people about their logic but I don't do it to try and change their mind but to try and find the answers that I would want if I were to share their faith. I suspect I wouldn't get very far with Mr Phelps because his logic seems to consist of self-affirming tautologies.

*speechless*
I've just been reading bits from his biography thingy, and I feel sick. Those poor children. it makes me want to cry/rage.

Everyone does have freedom of speech, but c'mon, there are limits. I thought you could get arrested for doing the things his does? It's not racism, (gayism?) I can't think of the word, but it's extremely hate orientated and he's causing a lot of distress, not just to the poor people's funerals he ruined.

"Oh I am so thankful that happened. My only regret is that they didn't kill about million of them. England deserves that kind of punishment, as does this country (America)".
How... how can anyone say that? In ANY context??
I thought Christians were all about "love thy neighbour" and "judge not less thee by judged" and things?
He's not a very good Christian is he?
I hope God kicks his bottom


He isn't planning on comming to England is he? *starts making anti-signs in case*.

On a related note about people's faith in religion. I find few people willing to discuss openly someone picking holes in what they believe in.

I myself am a firm supporter of the big bang theories.. for many reasons beyond the simple "because someone told me too". But I absolutely love to death to hear why it may or could not work.
I remember back in school when my physics teacher said, "The big bang theories not a perfect theory either, there's holes in it too". I was absolutely fascinated to find out what those holes were. I have since found out a myriad of them. But my belief in it being correct still holds? Why? Because it makes sense to me all the same, it fits into so much else about how the universe all works together. It may not hold together under 100% of all situations. But to me that just means our interpretation of it isn't quite right yet.
It also keeps my mind open to the idea that I could be wrong. I'm very concerned about people with 100% faith. It gets taught in many of the churchs as the way to be. But 100% faith in anything in my view often leads to narrow mindedness.
Open mindedness and belief in something, are not exclusively seperate goals. You can believe in something without blocking off all other avenues of thought without the world falling apart.

Phelps does what most people do (but not all) to a rather extreme degree. He needs things to be absolute to be comfortable. Needing things to be black or white and cannot cope with the grey haze inbetween. Like every person that needed Iraq to be evil as opposed to being just idealogically different.
He's gone and drawn up a list of self made rules going by his interpretation of christianity, and now is unforgiveningly condemning anyone that doesn't stick to things like glue. People that know where they stand with such firmness often feel safe and indestructable. So he's passing that feeling onto his followers like a drug who evidently seem to be lapping it up.
He's doing what some scientists do whenever they laugh at religious people as fools. Except religious folk are often painted as preachy, or at worst fanatics whenever they try show their beliefs. Scientists don't really get that bad rep since they're seen as more useful.
Example: Stephen Hawkings in a recent british interview was asked whether he believed if anything happened after you die. He replied saying that as a scientist he only believed in things he could explain, and that believing in such things is pretty foolish (that's not a quote.. but he did say foolish). Oddly the response of the interviewers was to laugh (richard and judy annoy me sometimes...)
Had a religious person said that believing in science was foolish I think people would have likely just called them an idiot.

It's fair enough to say phelps should be able to speak his opinions just like everyone else... But at what sake? Let's put this in perspective.. lets say some weird extremist science teachers popped up and started protesting outside of churchs. They caused no actual violent damage to anyone or anything. But haressed any that dared to enter with banners saying, "Religion is the source of all evil" and "Stop being a drain on our society". I think it'd be fair to say, regardless of whether physical damage had been done, damage to the community would certainly occur all the same. It's not really something you can measure, and I'd be first in line at the "stop god damn censorship" line. But there's a thin line really between, the right to offend, and the right to cause damage. I'd also hate to be the one deciding how you define precisely what is too much, and what is people being overly sensitive. But it's there none the less.

I don't think phelps should be stopped, arrested, or otherwise. But Come on, people having to take the back door to go to church, so they can avoid being haressed? Church obviously means a lot to them or they wouldn't risk going at all. We wouldn't dare defend someone's rights to mock a child for going to school. If a kid says nothing.. nothing happens. But if a kid makes the concious effort to make things stop, it stops.. (in theory). I think there should be someway to restrain him from cramming his views down people's throats. If people want to listen. That's there choice, but he seems to be forcing people to do so by camping out where they no longer get choice as to whether he gets heard or not. Communitys are getting angry (I originally typed a swear word rather than angry before changing it ) at him as a result. Coming down on him hard is just hypocrtyical, but letting him act however he wants regardless of how it effects these small communities isn't exactly taking things into the greater good either.

Right.. all done..

In other news.. I like ginger ale.. it's official

If I remember correctly, having read his biography a few times, he was a lawyer, and is very good at defending himself, and keeping himself right on the brink of breaking the law, but never actually breaking it. And I think the word would be bigotry, or possibly sexism.

Also all his sons are lawyers.

They have found ways to side-step the accusation of 'hate speech' by saying GOD hates *insert minority of choice*, but he doesn't encourage people to go out and harm anyone. He just says GOD will do it instead. So... he's off the hook.

Likewise I could go around screaming that the Flying Spaghetti Monster will devour the marrow from your bones in hell because you have ginger hair. However I can't be touched for it, unless people think I'm insane.

Not even for extreme child abuse and wife beating?
Did I miss something? (I wasn't able to watch the video) Where was anything mentioning having to go to church through the back door?

He's trying to force peopple into his way of thinking. Here he is expressing his freedom of speech whilst opressing other people's freedoms.

There isn't any actual proof that God exists, or any other deity, so it's not really a valid arguement... ah I don't think I'm saying what I was thinking properly.

I couldn't see the video either. I know his biography is long, but somewhere in there it says that the children Phelps managed to brainwash are fully supporting his story that he was a loving father. They have the two or three who managed to get away outnumbered and are claiming that the ones who left are crazy. Stalemate of witnesses, unfortunately. He's a very canny lawyer and people often settle with him just to avoid the trouble of fighting with him. His family (as Calantyr said) gets to the edge of illegal hate speech without doing anything solid enough to get convicted.
By the way, he's a racist as well. I can't remember where in the biography it is, but he hurled a racist slur at a polite woman just after telling some interviewers that he was firmly opposed to racism. Hypocritical git.

The statute of limitations on Mr Phelps' child abuse has expired - he cannot be prosecuted for it. I believe that the same applies to his spousal abuse.

A bit late in conversation perhaps, but I am presuming that one of the reasons he doesn't come to the UK is that there is now law for the freedom of speech- i.e you can be arrested if what you say is as extreme as what he is saying.

People like him just make me so angry to the point I want to cry. I am a pacifist, and am all for freedom of speech, but sometimes I get to a point where I ask myself "Wouldn't it just be better if he died suddenly?"

I'm not sure if that actually passed into law. There were a lot of objections to it. I know that Tony was very keen to get it on the books, but did he actually get it through?

I really regret that scum like this would associate himself so prominantly with my religion. It's offensive and embarrassing that he manipulates Christianity to be a doctrine of hatred and retribution. I'm with Commie; I wish he would stop getting so much press. I understand that the media reports on him because what he says is shocking, but all that happens is he receives more attention than he deserves and probably gets some free adversizing out of the deal.

I hope he's prosecuted eventually, but if not, let him stew in his own hate juice. I don't wish violent death on him (that would be unchristian of me) but I do hope that when he finally snuff it he gets a nasty surprise.

Actually, there are ways of shutting him up, though roundabout. For example, Oklahoma is trying to get a law passed that says it is illegal to protest at private family funerals, becausee comes here (it's only about 4.5 hours from Topeka to the OKC area) and waves his hate posters at the funerals of soldiers that have died in Iraq. Eventually it'll be illegal, and it could be the standard for other states to make similar laws to get him to go away. Or if he's making too much noise, he's disturbing the peace and then can be arrested. Or if he steps one foot off of the sidewalk and onto the private properties, and then it's off for trespassing.

He's gotten pretty smart about these things over the years though and although annoying, I think he gives the gay rights movement more publicity in rural, Republican America than we would otherwise. So thanks Fred, I love ya baby.

Personally his kids/grandkids are a lot more upsetting, hearing those high-school girls talking about how pleased they are about the folks they believe are burning in hell is really, really damaging. I mean, it's one thing to hear it from an old cult-leading fart, but totally different when I can see the effect he's had on what probably would have been good people. That sucks. A lot.

Found this. I figured it was pertinent.

Still... one must wonder does this infringe upon the freedom of speech and assembly? I think we can all agree that Fred Phelps is a colossal douche and should be shot in the head (repeatedly) but still, one has to protect the offensive to ensure the agreeable, yes?

It sure would be interesting to get a group of ooh, say 100 or so non-wingnuts to follow around his pickets with counter-pickets that say

"GOD LOVES EVERYONE
(including fags, and even you Fred)."

That would be fun. I would definitely attend if the places they tend to picket weren't a kajillion miles away from me.

I saw a picture once of a bunch of people protesting...something. Abortion? Can't remember. But there was a guy standing in the middle of them with a sign that said "WE ARE ALL IDIOTS" Rather gutsy move to stand in the middle of them like that.

They were waiting for the Lord On High to smite him with mighty fury.

That was really tempting fate. Reminds me of a Terry Pratchett quote that goes something to the effect of: "He was the sort of person who would stand on top of a tall mountain in the rain wearing copper armor and shouting "All gods are bastards!""
But to be on topic, I'm not really sure which way the proposed legislation on banning picketing at funerals should go. Free speech is important and this could be infringing on it, but the mourning relatives and friends will just feel worse if people are screaming about how horrible the dead person was. Perhaps the fairest thing would be to enact a 300-foot no-picketing zone around the funerals. The picketers would still be there, but they would be farther away and harder to hear, making it easier on the bereaved.

To be fair, Fred Phelps has a point. I mean, it stands to logical reason that God hates us all, that we're all going to Hell and that we deserve to suffer because our nation accepts homosexuality. I for one welcome The Phelps Revolution.

I wonder about you sometimes, LB.

It would really depend on your version of 'reason'. When applied to social issues, and ethics in particular, reason is always an ideological issue. The concept of ideologies is extremely powerful: they are a set of ideas and beliefs that followers belief to be naturally and logically correct, but are actually an artificial construct that has usually been established to reinforce systems of control over a social structure.

Male homosexuality is a good example of the way in which ideologies work: in the Christian view it is naturally and logically wrong because it does not encourage breeding and therefore is 'against nature', while this breeding also conveniently creates new Christians and revenue for the church. If you compare this to tribal Africa then homosexuality was tolerated and even encouraged. Gay men would help raise the children to give a father figure while the others would go and hunt, often gay men would become shamen due to their time to study medicine being increased by not having their own children. Equally, children were a burden on the abilities of a tribe to find enough food, so homosexual sex was viewed as a good release of sexual energy rather than heterosexual sex which may result in resource-hungry children. In such a situation it is logical and natural that bi/homosexual activity occurs, and the Christian ideology of homosexuality being evil would result in a huge amount of suffering and possibly starvation.

I vote we put Phelps in a room with Abu Hamza al-Masri (hooks removed) and lock the door.
Two dangerous fanatics, one Christian, one Muslim in one small room.
Hell for each of them - peace for the rest of us.

Can we add a hive of africanised bees? please?

three fanatics one Christian, one Muslim, one Queen and about a million drones and soldiers to choose who to follow.

(and all sing along) we're all slaves to an insect nation oh ah oh oh ohhhhh.

And a few gay ninjas for good measure.

Seven fanatics: one Christian, one Muslim, 5 Queens, 4 ninjas and a million drones.

As I was recently giving to opportunity to Talk to God. I asked him a few questions about Mr Phelps. The Interview went like this:

I just stumbled across this and thought it was releveant, though it doesn't have a proper source it's still quite cool.

http://dediced-nu.livejournal.com/161702.html

I seem to remember someone talking on IRC about counter-protesting Fred Phelps.

As have many of my friends and I. Good for the Bikers!

It's an excellent idea. The families of deceased solders probably are happy to know that people care about their loved one and are willing to stand up to slime like Phelps.

I was reading and watching this the other night and thought it would make for an intersting topic to debate with my year 11 class. I showed them the clip and then gave them a discussion topic "In a country that prizes free speech should we allow people to freely express views of racism/ homophobia etc?" It was very interesting.

The amount of subvocalised "tw@t"s I heard from my 16 year olds was quite amazing. What was even more interesting was their reaction "but thats America miss". I pointed out the recent riots in this country and in Denmark about the muslim bashing cartoon that was published and the amount of power people like the BNP have in this country. They were shocked very quickly.

Now I am in no means saying that the BNP are anything to do with this sort of religious (in my opinion) madness but the kids got the similarity. After the government voted yes on the crime of "incitement to religious hatred" a couple of weeks back we really do have to stop and think about what free speech is and how far it can be allowed to go AND if we have any right to curtail it.

Myself personally I think Phelps is overstepping the mark and should be prosecuted for infringing on other peoples right to free speech. If he is stopping people from worshipping/ expressing themselves then he is breaking at least laws in the UK. If he isn't in the US then how do they stop opposing protestors from killing each other?

In the US everyone has the right to peaceably assemble and protest. As soon as someone starts a riot or acts violently in any way, they're breaking the law. I personally think it should include vocal harassment, but I don't think it does.

The problem is verbal harassment is somewhat subjective. I'd love to say that this should be illegal. I'd absolutely love for them all to be locked up and set on fire, but we can't. If we stop them, then they'll be able to argue that we have to stop other more mainstream and necessary protestors and assemblers.

All we can do is prosecute them when they do break the law and hope that people realize that they are morons just like NAMBLA and the KKK. And that people will protest them in turn, much in the same vein that the biker gang is doing and that Jonman proposed.

Trust me, though... I wouldn't mind seeing a bomb thrown into their crowd.

I've never quite worked out where 'free speech' ends and 'harassment' begins in US law. I suspect that part of the trouble is that US law hasn't worked it out either.

Don't you think that makes you just as bad as Phelps? I'm not saying you are supporting what he says but by advocating violence against others aren't you sinking to his level? I know that you believe what he says to be wrong (and so do I) but he believes what we say is wrong and he is telling people it's ok to bomb the UK. Plus, by the looks of things, there are small children there who probably don't know any better. Do they deserve to die because they are doing what their parents tell them whether that be right or wrong? Do the parents deserve to die because their "leader" has "brainwashed" them? Am I making sense?

I've decided to start attacking people with nerf weapons when Fred Phelps is called 'Christian'. I realize he calls himself that, but pft. He's as human as the KKK and whatever (if any) UK equivalent there is. I skimmed through some of the articles/things posted and it was just.. sad. There was no mention of God's love, doing -any- good for the sinners (a title which covers the entire human race, Christian or non) and bah. Bah, I say. >.>

A bomb might hit the children, PsychWardMike, whom evidence suggests have suffered enough. I wouldn't mind seeing the adults struck mute or being forced to do volunteer service in either a third world country or an AIDS home (if they could be forced to keep quiet and not disturbed the dying people any further). They need their heads pulled out of their rear and a glimpse of how lucky they are.

Found another piece on this. I'll just link it as it's similar to previous ones. However it has a rather spiffy quote in it.

Huzzah for religious bigotry!

The quote in question is this:



Unfortunately he seems to have forgotton all the stuff about love, forgiveness, acceptance, etc. It's great being able to pick and choose what parts of a religion to follow.

And now I return to lurking.

Yeah, selective fundementalism is very useful for brainwashing people. I really want to see what Bible verse says to protest at funerals in the name of God. What exactly does he hope to accomplish? According to the article, he's trying to preach the Gospel, but I have yet to see which bit he's using to support this idiocy.

/spam

I've seen his site and am appalled at it. What brought Mr. Phelps to my attention not too long ago was that some representatives of his church, Westboro Baptist Church (WBC) were planning to come to my campus to protest Gay Pride Week. I almost feel honored. heh... I don't know if it was just to rile people up or if he/representatives of the WBC will actually be making an appearance. If they do decide to show up, I'll be sure to post on here telling you all about it.

If anyone's interested in the WBC's site, it's GodHatesFags.com. It has "Memorials". (Counters such as "Matthew Shepard has been in hell for 2718 days." and "Diane Whipple has been in hell for 1881 days.")

I found the wikipedia article on Fred Phelps (Fred Phelps) and at the bottom it has a few funny parody sites including GodHatesFigs.com, and GodHatesRags.com. Who is going to stand up for the Rags?! Is there no justice or sanity remaining??