Westboro Baptist Church

I know this is like shooting fish in a barrel, which is why I've been avoiding the whole thing up to now, but recently I was made aware of this site. Frankly, the Westboro Baptist Church have taken it one step too far! Sadly, this is not a clever satire, although admittedly with each passing day the job of the satirist becomes more difficult. No, these people actually believe what they're saying, and put considerable energy into picketing the funerals of dead soldiers and anyone who has anything to do with anything vaguely homosexual. Yes, for some reason, amid the reams of instructions and warnings and suggestions and commandments in the bible, the one about homosexuality is what they've chosen to concentrate on, more or less to the exclusion of the other ones. This probably tells us more about the Westboro Baptist Church than it does about the bible. We should take comfort from the fact that the entire church seems to comprise twelve people, all of whom are related, probably in more ways than one.*

Before you are exposed to the non-satirical madness, a quick dose of reality. Feel free to check back with this paragraph as this page gets more and more mental. Leviticus 18:22 says, rather simply, in the King James version, "Thou shalt not lie with mankind, as with womankind: it is abomination." The obvious answer from the literal-minded homosexual would be that gays don't lie with each other as they would with a woman - the bits don't fit. No, they lie with each other in a whole other way. However, even if there was no grammar problem with Leviticus, and even if there is a god, and even if he does hate gays, I don't really care what they do with each other and neither should you.

Iraq and enroll

These people have come to prominence in recent times because of their attitude with regard to American soldiers killed in Iraq, whose funerals they see fit to picket, on the grounds that they might be homosexuals. No one's entirely sure how that chain of logic links up, but they turn up to harass mourners anyway, shouting anti-gay slogans and generally being insensitive. Some press releases about this Iraq thing are republished from the Press Releases section of their website:

As you can see, just the kind of people us anti-war protesters are looking for. Note in the middle press release the complaint without irony about maltreatment and persecution of their church - this refers to efforts to stop them picketing and harassing the funerals of dead soldiers. Remember that these people are not stupid - they are brainwashed, which is not the same thing.

Other problems

However, let's get things into perspective. There are many animals, vegetables and minerals which incur the ire of Fred Phelps, and here is a selection, and again you'll have to remember that I haven't made anything up - everything here comes directly from their own Press Releases website, where presumably you can see some updated madness.

Well, apparently the entire state of California is doomed. Fair enough. No great loss, and in their defence, this place is packed to the rafters with homosexuals. So maybe we should give them that one.

Not so clear is the reasons for hating Colorado. Apparently this is some sort of in-fighting amongst different Christian groups. And in there somewhere is our old friend Ted Haggard, leader of the New Life Church, no stranger to homophobia himself, who was caught buying methamphetemine from a homosexual prostitute. For people like me - cynical atheists - it doesn't get much better than this.

Oooh - "whoremongering" - fancy! The queen of England! Maybe where 30 years of terrorist insurrection has failed, the fringe Christian movement will succeed. I'm sure we could get Prince Charles to help out - he's the main beneficiary, after all. (The "Harry Hammond" mentioned above suffers from autism, and did not seem to understand that his actions were causing public unrest.)

I've always had my suspicions about this 'sport'. I don't feel so bad about hating it now that I know god hates it too. I wonder if he has some spare time, maybe he could get around to hating that thing the Romanians do with the bit of ribbon.

Again, the irony completely escapes them. What is it about extremists and irony? They all seem to have in common a lack of humour and a lack of irony. Maybe that's all that separates them from normal people. In other news, apparently anyone attending a military funeral is an "idolatrous necromancer". I remember when idolatrous necromancers had standards. Good times.

I wonder if there is some sort of treason law where the Westboro Baptist Church can be arraigned for conspiring with the enemy? Of course that would involve admitting that prayers have any effect at all, something which has yet to be demonstrated.

It should be noted that 'Larry the Cable Guy' is a fictional character played by a man called Dan Whitney.

Maybe they just have a thing for guys named "Larry". At least Senator Larry Craig is a real person, and probably a real homosexual. Of course Craig's difficulty arises not in being gay, but in being gay while simultaneously supporting anti-gay measures on various House Ethics committees. Also, note how Minneapolis airport is apparently also known as "the Fag Cruisy Area".

Now that the queen has been taken care of, maybe god can get around to killing a few people who just happen to live in London. Too right. Fuck 'em.

Hah! They thought they were getting away without anyone noticing. Well, someone's paying attention. Send them all back and Mr. Gorbachev, put up that wall.

A bridge collapses in Minnesota, and we laugh. Texas floods, and we laugh. Anonymous is Legion. We never forgive. We never forget.

It's about time someone took that Martin Luther King guy down a peg or two. How come Chinese people don't have their own day? Or white people? I want a national holiday celebrating white people. Call me when that happens.

Sweden's Princess Victoria, in case the allusion escapes anyone. As far as I can tell, she's not especially slutty, her breasts are not of an unusually large size, and she's not a lesbian.

That stupid song annoys me too, but I'm not sure how it can be described as "whoremongering".

All the people in Indiana that weren't killed by the tornado are presumably loved and blessed by god, but we have to concentrate on the other ones.

West virginia, mountain momma, take me home, country roads.

Ah for fuck's sake! Leave Christmas alone! You heartless bastards!

The Solution

Wear this shirt wherever three or more of them are gathered in my name:

*Cheap shot. Only slightly amusing, and probably not true.