Fred Phelps: a premature obituary

So, apparently Fred Phelps is in a hospice and on the verge of death.

The founder of the Westboro Baptist Church is clinging to life, despite the combined wishes of the majority of the American population.

Apparently, although the Westboro members refuse to talk about it, Fred was voted out of the church by the other members, according to people like his estranged son, Nate Phelps (who regained his sanity 37 years ago and left the church).

Now, it's possible that the other members of Westboro Baptist Church realized that Fred was the worst person in America, and decided that they didn't want him around any more. It's just as likely, though, that much like the Tea Party and the Republicans, they've decided that Freddy was holding them back from reaching the true depths of hatred available to them.

Here's the thing, though. Our boy Freddy isn't dying because of some unexpected illness or because his body finally got tired of his shit. It appears that he is dying from an extended tantrum.

After Phelps was voted out of Westboro Baptist Church this past summer, he was moved out of the church and into a house, where he was watched to ensure he wouldn’t harm himself, a son estranged from the church said Sunday. Phelps eventually stopped eating and drinking, and on Sunday, he was near death.

And at age of 84, you can't do that to your body, as Fred has apparently just discovered.

So, having warped the minds of at least three generations of followers, Fred has just learned that you can't keep your body running for over eight decades on a diet of hate, and then try to replace it with sadness.

When he finally stops wasting our oxygen, he will not be missed.

Just do it!

Perhaps Fred Phelps Jr. is getting slow, or perhaps he has to type with one hand because he's so exited at God's wrath being inflicted on Moore, Oklahoma.  The very thought of little children being crushed or torn to pieces as they scream in terror must excite him past the point of self control. It took him hours to inform us that this disaster was the result of Oklahoma City Thunder basketball star Kevin Durant’s public support for gay basketball player Jason Collins.  God works in mysterious ways, but there's nothing mysterious about Fred unless you're interested in the chemistry of foul smells.

But there's light at the end of the drain and maybe a suggestion for people like Fred with more demons than synapses in their skulls. Dominique Venner is billed in the press as a right-wing historian, although some may prefer to call him a hate-filled pervert obsessed with other people's sexual preferences,  or an ultra nationalist militiaman because of his past involvement with a paramilitary Secret Army Organisation which fought against France giving up colonial rights in Algeria. A gay hating enemy of human rights and freedom, in short. Mr. Venner walked into Notre Dame de Paris Monday, placed a letter on the altar and then blew his brains out with an illegally owned pistol.

The famous Cathedral has been the site of many demonstrations and protests over the issue of gay marriage which became legal last week. Catholic conservative Venner certainly made his point to the horror of the tour groups present and one has to wonder about the dedication of lesser nobles like Phelps for not martyring himself for his ridiculous cause.  I presume God has to wonder too.

So what about it Fred?  I mean you don't need to go to Paris or even to bloody up someone elses Church, you've got one of your own. Take your dad along, make it a father and son thing, or take the whole flock along, but Just do it!

The Mouth of The Lord

The 'reverend' Phelps is at it again, twittering that God Bombed Boston for the same reason God does most of the horrible things he does like letting millions of children die miserably and needlessly and live miserably and hopelessly all over the world -- because they aren't actively persecuting gay people.  So busy is the God of Rage and so obsessed with regulating love and sex that he's never had the time to do anything else.  You'll notice that he never blew up Sobibor or Auschwitz or wasted his time with chastising the murderers of millions of children in Africa and Asia and yes, even Europe.  In fact he must have blown the budget on his flood since he hasn't done shit that looks anything like divine retribution since -- except for the odd bombing or two -- and a lot of threats.

No, what God, or at least Deus ex Wesboro, is about is  -- you should pardon the term -- "fags."  God just hates 'em, the way Indiana Jones hates snakes or the way I hate preachers.  He can't really do much about it though, whether he's in the form of the old man or his son who's also himself or that bird that crept in sometime in the 4th century when they left the window open,  other than to use an improvised explosive device against people who can hardly be blamed for not persecuting anyone.  Little kids, for instance.

Persecuting gay people isn't something God is good at doing all by himself actually. He needs kids and grown ups with hate in their hearts and not much in their heads.  Gay people or doctors who perform abortions or as the commandments stress: abominable people who eat cheeseburgers or hate any of the 613 commandments. The best he can do is kill one or two here or there who have no connection to his weird dislikes and kids are always best.  No, those flood days are over for good what with the economy as it is.

Typical of helpless tyrants, what God does best is to make gruesome threats and Phelps quotes Leviticus 26:15-16 where the anonymous author speaking for his version of God, tells anyone who doesn't like all those psychotic prohibitions and commandments:

"I also will do this unto you; I will even appoint over you terror, consumption, and the burning ague, that shall consume the eyes, and cause sorrow of heart: and ye shall sow your seed in vain, for your enemies shall eat it."

He quotes the Prophet Micah as saying "Hear ye the Rod and who hath appointed it"

So what I put together from this strange choice of divine inspiration is that we should be concerned with our rods and that our enemies will eat them.  You know, I suspect and I suspect that you suspect that Phelps is a bit overly  concerned with rods and those who eat what issues from them.

Too bad for him and good for us, that celestial ventriloquist's dummy only speaks with our voice and only says what each of us thinks he does.  For my part, I see Phelps' lips moving with desire when God talks about Rods and Staffs and the seed thereof and as the Old man of the Sky happens to be sitting on my knee at the moment, I seem to hear him saying "SUCK IT PHELPS -- YOU KNOW YOU WANT TO."

News To Me

I have a little notebook in which I keep information, links, ideas and names of books or articles I want to explore and, perhaps, write about. Lots of the entries in my notebook never make it onto the blog, especially these days when the big news comes in so hot and fast, even the pros can't catch it.  My reflexes ain't what they used to be, anyway, and I deliberately try to avoid sipping from the fire hydrant of televised and daily paper news. Lots of things the rest of the nation knew last week are news to me right this minute. This post is a small collection of things I learned about just this week. Take pity. Pretend to be surprised.

1)  We can date the demise of Wall Street as an integral part of the American economy to a 1981 decision made by one man, once known as The King Of Wall Street, John Gutfreund.

I didn't know that. I didn't realize that, according to Michael Lewis in The Big Short, on the day Gutfreund took Salomon Brothers from a private partnership to Wall Street's first publicly traded corporation, Salomon Brothers stopped serving investors and started serving themselves. Of Gutfreund and the subsequent remake of The Street, Lewis writes,

He lifted a giant middle finger in the direction of the moral disapproval of his fellow Wall Street CEO's. And he'd seized the day. He and the other partners not only made a quick killing; they transferred the ultimate financial risk from themselves to their shareholders.

...from that moment, the Wall Street firm became a black box. The shareholders who financed the risk taking had no real understanding of what the risk takers were doing, and, as the risk taking grew ever more complex, their understanding diminished....The customers became, oddly, beside the point.

The moment Salomon Brothers demonstrated the potential gains to be had from turning an investment bank into a public corporation and leveraging its balance sheet with exotic risks, the psychological foundations of Wall Street shifted, from trust to blind faith.

From there on out, it was all about the CEO's, for whom short-term gain so far outweighed the value of long-term loss that a culture of growing bonuses each year was fostered even when the customers and the stockholders lost money. Even when the government bailed them out of bankruptcy! Without that one little piece, the private-to-public piece, none of it hung together for me.

2) On October 6th, the SCOTUS is scheduled to hear the case of Snyder vs. Phelps, perhaps better known as the case of a grieving father's right to a private funeral for his military son vs. Westboro Baptist Church's right to picket that funeral with signs saying, "Thank God For Dead Soldiers."

I tackled this subject in the spring in "You! What Planet Is This?" and The Wedding Bends. The synopsis is that 20 year old Marine Matthew Snyder died in March, '06, and Fred Phelps' church group picketed his funeral. Matthew's father Albert sued Phelps and his church in '07 for willfully causing emotional distress and invading his privacy. A jury awarded Snyder approximately $11 million, but, in 2009, the US Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit in Richmond, VA, overturned the verdict and ordered Snyder to pay over $16,500 to Phelps for court costs. Snyder refused to pay.


The 1988 case of Hustler Magazine v. Jerry Falwell, " in which the U.S. Supreme Court's unanimous 8-0 decision held the First Amendment's free-speech guarantee prohibits awarding damages to public figures to compensate for emotional distress intentionally inflicted upon them," is cited as precedent.  Phelps' daughter, Margie, will represent the family and the church. For Military.com, Craig Trebilcock, one of Snyder's attorneys, was interviewed by Andrew Lubin:

"People want to make this out as free speech," Trebilcock said Monday, "but actually it's about harassment and who is or is not a public figure." He continued "Lance Corporal Snyder was a 20 year-old Marine from Maryland who died in Iraq; how does a church group from Kansas declare him a ‘public figure? Because they're claiming that since the Snyder family ran an obituary in the local newspaper that makes him fair game.

This is a verdict to watch for in October. And, if you ever doubted that it is the exception that proves the rule, here's a chance to watch the exception create the precedent for decades to come. Who ever, in their wildest and most horrible nightmares, could have dreamed up Fred Phelps? If this becomes a First Amendment ruling, then we are powerless in the face of insane and aggressive hatefulness. And there's plenty of that to go around these days. Fred Phelps is not the only demon capable of hiring or siring an attorney.

3) Something good--quick and quickly! There IS a place to listen to both sides in an entirely rational debate format.


Go to Intelligence Squared, where you can watch, download podcasts, and even buy tickets. Foremost authorities gather for classic debates of the most important issues we face. Their motto: Think Twice. This is exactly what I've been looking for.


In the most recent debate, the topic was, "Treat terrorists like enemy combatants, not criminals; for and against." The audience is polled prior to the debate and the outcome charted; after the debate, a re-polling shows the winner. I was naturally gratified to find that the audience agreed with me and with my own previously held position. (I'm so easily naturally gratified, in my opinion it just can't happen too frequently. Ahem.)

Outcome, Sept. 14, 2010

There's a Research In Depth link that provides titles, snippets, and articles used by each side in developing positions. I may disappear into this site, never to be seen again.


Who in the world knew?!