Comment and Opinion

Westboro Baptist Church (God Hates Fags)

This site received an Encouragement Award in the 1999 Millenium Project Awards. The award was announced in the following words:

Once one of the most reviled sites on the web, the Westboro Baptist Church is now a tame shadow of its former self. I remember when you couldn't read a page there without being told a dozen times what it said in Leviticus about who you could lie down with. I am giving this site an Encouragement Award in the hope that they can lift their game and restore the site to its former glory. Come on, Fred, get in off the streets and back in front of the computer, fire up the rantomatic and give us some of that old-time gay bashing. Everybody needs somebody to hate, and we want you back.

In 2004, this site did even better by being Highly Commended. This was achieved by the effort put in by Pastor Fred Phelps after the tsunami which devastated the countries around the Indian Ocean on December 26, 2004. Fred put the blame straight onto God. He issued two press releases, one headed "Thank God for Tsunami & 2,000 dead Swedes", and one headed "Thank God for Tsunami. Thank God for 3,000 dead Americans!". Here is Rev Fred on why God sent the tsunami. Remember that Phelps is a Christian.

The tsunami was an adumbration of the wrath of God, a harbinger of things to come: that Great Day of Judgment. Amos 3:6 "Shall a trumpet be blown in the city, and the people not be afraid? shall there be evil in a city, and the LORD hath not done it?" That word translated "evil" there is means distress, misery, injury, calamity. The answer, of course, to the rhetorical question posed in this verse is a resounding "NO!" See also Romans 1:18 "For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who hold the truth in unrighteousness;" And you wonder if this is the wrath of God? The lands affected by this judgment from God aren’t just full of idolatry; we’re talking about places (think Thailand) that are hot spots where American businessmen travel for the express purpose of fornicating with young Asian children. It is a thriving industry over there; many of these girls are taken into that business when they are seven years old or younger. "Mortify therefore your members which are upon the earth; fornication, uncleanness, inordinate affection, evil concupiscence, and covetousness, which is idolatry: For which things' sake the wrath of God cometh on the children of disobedience:" Col 3:5-6. And you wonder if this is the wrath of God? Not to mention the fact that those Asian countries weren’t the only ones affected by the tsunami. Do you realize that among the dead and missing are 3,500 Swedes and over 3,000 Americans? Sweden, who recently jailed a Gospel preacher for a month because he preached Bible verses and sentiments about the abomination that is the homosexual lifestyle from his own pulpit to his own congregation. America, who is awash in diseased fag feces & semen, and is an apostate land of the sodomite damned. And you wonder if this is the wrath of God?

They object too much (18/5/2002)
I sometimes find myself having a small chuckle at web sites which really should appal and offend me. The usual reason for this is that something is so outrageous that the site starts to look like parody. These sites are actually less dangerous than the ones which present bigotry or lies in a calm, dispassionate manner, but they often attract a lot of attention. Two examples floated past me this week, although both have been listed here for a long time. The first is the famous Westboro Baptist Church, better known as "God Hates Fags", owned by Fred Phelps. This site used to be a lot crazier than it is now, but it is still pretty badly unhinged. The second site is The Hal Turner Show owned, obviously, by mad radio announcer Hal Turner. While Fred is a single-issue hater and ranter, Hal is a bit more eclectic and adds racism to the religious bigotry and homophobia. (Hal seems to be having some trouble deciding whose side he is on in the Middle East at the moment. As he hates both Arabs and Jews, he doesn't know quite what to do about the Palestinians.) I'm not condoning or supporting what either Phelps or Turner has to say (although I will defend etc - Voltaire), but I think the attention and reaction they get is out of proportion to the harm they can cause. The ones we can laugh at are far less dangerous than the slick, reasonable sounding ones who politely spread hate on talk shows, in books and on the Internet.

Fred's back! (7/1/2006)
Just when you think that things can't get any worse, the Reverend Fred Phelps from the Westboro Baptist Church makes a reappearance. His latest stunt is to threaten to protest at the memorial service for the twelve miners killed in the recent mine collapse in West Virginia. Please remember that this man claims to be a Christian and to live strictly according to God's rules as set out in the Bible. You can click here to see the whole thing in all its vileness. I was pleased that he didn't picket my Christmas lunch because I was violating the instructions in Leviticus, where it says "Whatsoever hath no fins nor scales in the waters, that shall be an abomination unto you".