By Brody Levesque (Bethesda, Maryland) Sept 26 | The fastest way to get a LGBT activist's blood pressure soaring sky high is to simply whisper the name 'Fred Phelps' into that person's ear. The reactions are almost visceral to Fred & his traveling band of hate mongers. Interestingly enough, at a book signing event for her newly released "The Meaning Of Matthew," when asked how she felt about Fred Phelps & the other members of the Westboro Baptist Church, Judy Shepard's response was, "I love Fred, we need him to show others that there are people who are out there that hate and are ignorant."
In a column written for the LGBT News Site & Blog 365.com, writer Ali Davis had this to say about Phelps & Clan:
( Photo of Ali Davis by 365.com)
What’s Good about the Phelps Family
By Ali Davis,09.03.2009 | Culture & Ideas
I am such a fan of Vermont lately.
As you know, gay marriage became legal in Vermont on September 1, and the Phelps Phamily, always classy to a fault, decided to show up and scream about how bad it is to have gay thoughts even though I have never in my life met someone who seems to spend as much time thinking about the mechanics of gay sex as much as the Phelps clan.
By Ali Davis,09.03.2009 | Culture & Ideas
I am such a fan of Vermont lately.
As you know, gay marriage became legal in Vermont on September 1, and the Phelps Phamily, always classy to a fault, decided to show up and scream about how bad it is to have gay thoughts even though I have never in my life met someone who seems to spend as much time thinking about the mechanics of gay sex as much as the Phelps clan.
Chi Chi La Rue hasn’t thought about sex that much over an entire career.
And, yes, the Phelps clan protests are bad and stupid and wrong and, God, aren’t you kind of bored with this sentence already?
Fred Phelps and the Westboro Baptist Church have done it: They’ve screamed so long that they’ve just become tiresome.
Tiresome and irrelevant. And that’s what’s good.
I read today’s Vermont papers to see how the locals reacted to the Phelpses in Montpelier, and it was like a mastodon had wandered into the neighborhood.
They were puzzled, and didn’t want to get too close.
They couldn’t quite believe such a thing still existed, and while they didn’t necessarily feel a need to kill it, they did seem to think it might be better contained in a zoo or a lab somewhere.
Another good thing about the Phelps family is that they are shrill and horrible enough that they are among the few who still really illustrate the hate that lies so quietly under the anti-LGBT movement. Even the goobers at NOM know not to put it right out there.
But not the Phelpses. They’re bigoted, loud, and proud. Which means we can take the kids to look at them in the zoo and explain how dangerous they are when they’re allowed to breed unchecked in the wild.
Speaking of kids, yes, we do have to feel sad that the Westboro Baptist Church is screwing up their own kids by teaching them that religion is about casting that first stone hard enough that the pain in your shoulder keeps you from noticing your own sins.
But what they’ve managed to show me about how terrific and accepting the next generation can be is something wonderful.
In addition to the hilarious raw numbers – five members from Westboro Baptist met by more than a hundred counterprotesters – there is the heartwarming story of the students at Montpelier High.
The Burlington Free Press reported that the students considered attacking the Phelps clan with Super Soakers, but in the end decided that it wasn’t quite right to shoot the mastodon.
But they also didn’t want it to step on anything with its big, clumsy feet.
So the students, led by senior Joe Carlomagno, instead organized a fundraising campaign and asked people to donate for every minute that the protestors stayed. They ended up raising more than $5,000 for GLAD.
Carlomagno’s comment to the Free Press was, “They’re here to provoke our anger and our reaction. I’m glad we showed some finesse.” That is one self-possessed 17-year-old.
So thank you, Phelps clan, for being loud and stupid and rude and for having no social sense whatsoever. Because you remind everyone that other, slicker groups are just mastodons in sheep’s clothing, and that all the carefully crafted “I love them, I just don’t agree with their lifestyle” rhetoric is being trumpeted past some big, old-fashioned tusks.
And thank you for being awful enough to inspire those high school students to be better people than you are, and to be innovative while doing it. That lesson will serve them well for the rest of their lives.
But mostly, thank you for being very nearly extinct.
And, yes, the Phelps clan protests are bad and stupid and wrong and, God, aren’t you kind of bored with this sentence already?
Fred Phelps and the Westboro Baptist Church have done it: They’ve screamed so long that they’ve just become tiresome.
Tiresome and irrelevant. And that’s what’s good.
I read today’s Vermont papers to see how the locals reacted to the Phelpses in Montpelier, and it was like a mastodon had wandered into the neighborhood.
They were puzzled, and didn’t want to get too close.
They couldn’t quite believe such a thing still existed, and while they didn’t necessarily feel a need to kill it, they did seem to think it might be better contained in a zoo or a lab somewhere.
Another good thing about the Phelps family is that they are shrill and horrible enough that they are among the few who still really illustrate the hate that lies so quietly under the anti-LGBT movement. Even the goobers at NOM know not to put it right out there.
But not the Phelpses. They’re bigoted, loud, and proud. Which means we can take the kids to look at them in the zoo and explain how dangerous they are when they’re allowed to breed unchecked in the wild.
Speaking of kids, yes, we do have to feel sad that the Westboro Baptist Church is screwing up their own kids by teaching them that religion is about casting that first stone hard enough that the pain in your shoulder keeps you from noticing your own sins.
But what they’ve managed to show me about how terrific and accepting the next generation can be is something wonderful.
In addition to the hilarious raw numbers – five members from Westboro Baptist met by more than a hundred counterprotesters – there is the heartwarming story of the students at Montpelier High.
The Burlington Free Press reported that the students considered attacking the Phelps clan with Super Soakers, but in the end decided that it wasn’t quite right to shoot the mastodon.
But they also didn’t want it to step on anything with its big, clumsy feet.
So the students, led by senior Joe Carlomagno, instead organized a fundraising campaign and asked people to donate for every minute that the protestors stayed. They ended up raising more than $5,000 for GLAD.
Carlomagno’s comment to the Free Press was, “They’re here to provoke our anger and our reaction. I’m glad we showed some finesse.” That is one self-possessed 17-year-old.
So thank you, Phelps clan, for being loud and stupid and rude and for having no social sense whatsoever. Because you remind everyone that other, slicker groups are just mastodons in sheep’s clothing, and that all the carefully crafted “I love them, I just don’t agree with their lifestyle” rhetoric is being trumpeted past some big, old-fashioned tusks.
And thank you for being awful enough to inspire those high school students to be better people than you are, and to be innovative while doing it. That lesson will serve them well for the rest of their lives.
But mostly, thank you for being very nearly extinct.
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