Fred Phelps

From RationalWiki

Fred Phelps is a supposedly conservative Christian pastor, whose vitriolic anti-homosexual rhetoric and actions, including the mantra "God hates fags", and the claim that "God loves everybody… the greatest lie ever told!" (in direct opposition to the basic tenets of Christianity) have gained him a huge negative response.

Once upon a time, Fred Phelps was a good civil rights fighter. He helped remove Jim Crow laws in his hometown and elsewhere. However, today his whole life is devoted to homophobia, to the point of forcing many of his children out of his family for being "pro-gay."

Fred Phelps has the dubious distinction of being the only person in recorded history with the ability to make Sean Hannity seem rational.^[1]

1 Westboro Baptist Church
2 Phelps and the religious right
3 Getting sued
4 See also
5 Footnotes

[edit] Westboro Baptist Church

Phelps' organization, Westboro Baptist Church, makes a habit of picketing funerals, particularly those of soldiers (regardless of their sexual orientation), claiming that "God hates fag-enablers". Interestingly, WBC also pickets many Christian organizations, including Jerry Falwell's funeral, because those organizations fail to believe that homosexuals should be executed, the viewpoint which WBC holds. In addition to their primary website, "God Hates Fags", they also run a whole site family, with URLs generally on the pattern of "godhatesexample.com".

Another notable target is Matthew Shepard, a homosexual who was murdered in a likely homophobic assault — the protest at his funeral initially gained Fred Phelps a good deal of attention. Phelps also hates Sweden for their policies on hate speech about homosexuals. He has even blamed the 2005 Indonesian tsunami on Indonesia's large Swedish tourist population. Other targets are countries in general, politicians, people in entertainment, newspeople, and victims of both crime and natural disasters.

Phelps' sermons, some of which have been broadcast on radio or on his website, tend to last for around an hour, and consist of an old man rambling incoherently to himself, getting agitated and shouting every few minutes, and quote mining the scriptures to support his warped and hateful attitudes.

Westboro Baptist Church consists mostly of Phelps' own family, and displays many of the signs of being an abusive, coercive cult, ^[2] much like the Schafly compound.

[edit] Phelps and the religious right

While many conservatives try to disassociate Phelps from themselves and the conservative movement in general, his politics are very similar to other members of the religious right. Like Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell, Phelps associates recent tragedies inflicted upon the United States with God's wrath for the nation's growing acceptance of homosexuality. The difference between them lies in Phelps' acceptance, and even encouragement, of these actions as part of God's will, while Robertson apparently thinks God is going too far by letting so many Christians die.

[edit] Getting sued

Phelps and most of his spiritually malformed spawn are lawyers, and routinely threaten to sue anyone who interferes with their hatemongering.

However, they may need to cut back on the protesting at funerals, now that they've lost a $2.9 million lawsuit against them.^[3] (Update: Did I say $2.9 Million? Sorry, it's $10.9 Million now.^[4]) Some Guy With A Website points out that this is unconstitutional, and will probably get overturned on appeal.^[5] And that the ACLU, in their thankless task of protecting the rights of even the worst people, has once again been used as cannon-fodder by hatemongers.