Hate Crimes: February 2006 Archives

And just when I thought I had seen it all...

I knew that these nuts were going around the country picketing the funerals of gay men, but when I heard that they had started picketing the funerals of dead American soldiers killed in Iraq, I realized that these people are way beyond Lithium!

My personal belief is this... I can understand why no one really cared about them picketing the funerals of gay men who had died of AIDS. No one cared for them. That was something our community had to deal with. Hell, in many cases, the person’s family didn’t even come to his funeral. The rest of America didn’t care either. We buried our loving friends while AIDS jokes were being told by comedians on television.

Well, there is, at some level within me, some satisfaction in all of this. Yes, I know it’s dark, but maybe now America is learning how it felt for us when it happened to us. Now, it is happening to people they love. So how is that working for you America? How does that make you feel inside?

And now that the Phelps clan has moved on to bigger things (I guess they got bored with the small audiences), they should really be careful. I think gay people are some of the most peaceful and loving people around. The same cannot be said for society at large. They should be careful. Some crazy distraught family member may just decide to deal with the issue with something other than words. Just a thought.

Wearing vests covered in military patches, a band of motorcyclists rolls around the country from one soldier’s funeral to another, cheering respectfully to overshadow jeers from church protesters.

They call themselves the Patriot Guard Riders, and they are more than 5,000 strong, forming to counter anti-gay protests held by the Rev. Fred Phelps at military funerals.

Phelps believes American deaths in Iraq are divine punishment for a country that he says harbors homosexuals. His protesters carry signs thanking God for so-called IEDs -- explosives that are a major killer of soldiers in Iraq. [...]

Shirley Phelps-Roper, a daughter of Fred Phelps and an attorney for the Topeka, Kan.-based church, said neither state laws nor the Patriot Guard can silence their message that God killed the soldiers because they fought for a country that embraces homosexuals.

“The scriptures are crystal clear that when God sets out to punish a nation, it is with the sword. An IED is just a broken-up sword,” Phelps-Roper said. “Since that is his weapon of choice, our forum of choice has got to be a dead soldier’s funeral.”

The church, Westboro Baptist Church, is not affiliated with a larger denomination and is made up mostly of Fred Phelps’ extended family members.

During the 1990s, church members were known mostly for picketing the funerals of AIDS victims, and they have long been tracked as a hate group by the Montgomery, Ala.-based Southern Poverty Law Center’s Intelligence Project. (source)