Wednesday, 06.18.08
The Family That Protests Together
Photo by Vanessa Nickerson
Something tells me that today, as hundreds weep not two hundred yards from my office, is not the day to say something nice about the most reviled family in America. But when is the day? Every year, the followers of the Reverend Fred Phelps protest hundreds of funerals -- mostly the funerals of soldiers -- and each set of mourners deserves better that to have anti-gay fanatics waving signs denouncing them as "fags" and "fag-enablers" (a category that apparently captures everyone but the Westboro members themselves). The bereaved Russerts certainly do. I sympathize with the woman who stopped her car and asked a passerby to run over and snatch away the "Russert in Hell" sign. But if we must choose one funeral as an occasion to rectify the public's ignorance of the Phelpses' bizarre history, it might even seem fitting that the occasion would be the death of a man recognized as an emblem of truth-seeking and setting records straight.
The kindest thing one can say about the Phelps clan (the Church consists primarily of one family) is that they are not exactly what they seem. Commonly thought to be an extreme branch of the Religious Right, they in fact profoundly loathe the figures most identified with religious conservatism. Last year, when Jerry Falwell died, the Westboro Baptist Church picketed his funeral far more vigorously than they are picketing Russert's, and they issued a press release that denounced him in unambiguous and colorful terms ("corpulent false prophet," "Arminian heretic").
Whence the hatred of a fellow Baptist, a man who seemed to share so many of Westboro's grotesque views? The answer lies in the past of Falwell himself and of the Phelps family. Falwell was a shameless racist, and the Phelps family were, incredible as it may seem, pioneers of integration in their hometown of Topeka. The Phelps family's law practice, headed formerly by the patriarch himself, Fred Phelps, took civil rights cases, often for black plaintiffs who had failed to find representation elsewhere. The Phelpses viewed racial discrimination as un-American and contrary to Biblical teaching, and their work helped to effectuate the Brown decision. And so, by the Phelpses' account, they litigated the fulfillment of Biblical justice and grew up despised for their beliefs, and despised by no one more than wicked subverters of the Word of God like Jerry Falwell.
As Fred's brood matured, more Phelpses earned law degrees. What eventually infuriated them, it seems, was gays' agitation for the same rights and protections the Phelpses had worked hard to ensure for blacks. They saw gay rights movement not as a fulfillment of God's word but as a perversion of it: the Bible may be silent on the subject of race, unless you count Amalekites as a race, but it has at least a few words about sodomy that Christians can't easily explain away. (Here I imagine Fred Phelps producing a full-screen quote, Russert-style, of Leviticus 18:22.) The Phelpses have been protesting ever since. Decades of unpopularity have hardened them. When confronted or sued, they invoke the same Constitutional rights they and their forbears have spent their lives defending -- not from atheists and sodomites, at first, but from religious people who tried to insert their "false" faiths, complete with racism and bigotry, into politics. The Phelpses say they view the Bill of Rights as a gift of God, and when they aren't talking about gays, their rhetoric more closely matches civil libertarians' than religious conservatives'.
Why, then, disturb the peace of Tim Russert, a man privately devout in his practice of a faith not known for its friendliness to gays? The Phelpses say that Russert failed to use his prominence to fulminate against gays in general, or even ordained gay pedophiles in his own religion. (Guilty as charged, I guess.) I cannot imagine that Russert would have wanted these crazed First Amendment absolutists at his own memorial service, but as a journalist, he might have bitterly appreciated their right to be there.
First encounterMother Jones profiled Fred Phelps in 1999, when the Reverend made himself famous for celebrating the death of Matthew Shepard. |
Invasion of privacyThe Baltimore Sun covers a lawsuit against Phelps's Church by the family of a dead soldier. |
Unintended consequencesThe New York Times reports that the extremism of Phelps's rhetoric might be helping the LGBT community and compelling many gay Kansans to come out and take a stand. |
OverkillJack Shafer reflects on the media's over-coverage of Tim Russert's death. |
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The Phelps head Reverend, and his two witch-lawyer daughters who live off lawsuits they make against actions of those outraged against their beyond limits behavior, are well past the stage someone should start taking them out in the name of good citizenship.
Some good citizen who could set up with a good sound-suppressed rifle and drop Phelps or one of his spawn. Hit one at a protest or somewhere they journey to outside Kansaa. And the good people of Kansas have to explain why their church is still standing and not in cinders.
As a gay man I have long loathed the Phelpses, but their efforts on behalf of racial reconciliation, given their homophobic hate-mongering, is a fascinating detail. Thanks for the piece.
Good essay, but remember the main fact, which is that the Phelpses are not a religious group at all. They only adopted the corporate identity of a 'church' for the legal benefits and protections it affords them. Since their mission, such as it is, so differs from those of all religious groups, this could be helpful to keep pointing out in good articles like this one.
As a follower of Jesus this really saddens me. These people are wrong on so many fronts and I can be sure they've never really read the New Testament, or at least understood it. Whoever they are following by doing these horrific things it is no the Jesus I know.
For the record, those of us who are pro-gay Christian clergy don't "explain away" the passages in question, but we do deal with them the same way most Christians deal with texts about slavery, oppressing women, etc.
One example is in the link in my Post information.
It is true that my father was heavily involved in civil rights cases in the late 60's and 70's, but it's inaccurate to portray his activity as altruistic or Biblically based. The Civil Rights Act of 1964 created a whole new, untapped, area of law. It was a perfect opportunity to create a lot of revenue quickly if you were in the legal profession. My father's mind was well suited for fashioning dramatic, emotional arguments in this new area of law. But his motivation was money and notoriety, not fairness and equality.
At the same time he filed case after case (so many that the state of Kansas ended up passing new legislation that held attorneys accountable for filing frivolous suits)in defense of blacks' rights, he reviled and criticized the entire race based on his biblical interpretations. It was also common practice in the law office to insult the individual clients behind their backs by referring to them as "DN's" (dumb n**'s).
His practiced rhetoric in support of the civil rights of black Americans belied the reality that he placed them in the same hell bound boat with the rest of the human race, save his own church members.
I'd think law enforcement would handle actual disruptions of funerals.
However, vulgarity, stupidity, racism, homophobia and other forms of prejudice shouldn't be censored. They are ugly and disturbing, but everyone needs to see these things unfiltered and make their judgements. This is fundamental to democracy.
In a way, the sorry spectacle this family creates is a validation of free speech.
Not these people again! I totally forgot about them, and gladly. They are a truly horrible set. It's inexplicably cowardly to harass people at funerals, when they're in such a pained and vulnerable state.
If that comment by "Nate Phelps" is real, then it's pretty sad that an attempt at saying one nice thing about this family is untrue.
What a bunch of miserable attention whores. Why do we keep giving them attention?? Its exactly what they want! All they are is a group of people that have found an extremely elaborate way to try and stand on top of the ant hill and scream "We're better than you are, we're going to heaven and you're not so there!", and thumping the bible around to try and prove their "point". They love the negative attention, because it reinforces the belief that they are martyrs, and don't kid yourselves, thats EXACTLY how they think of themselves. Stories like this just need to stop being published and posted. Seriously! We know what they do, we know they're a lot of crazy obsessive little nats, so why must we validate them by discussing them further? Ignore them and their little antics, treat them like you'd treat a spoiled kid throwing a temper tantrum, they're really no better. Continuing to discuss them every time they pull something like this only makes them feel important.
Ah, how can we forget their recent protest of the victims of the Minneapolis I-35W bridge collapse? Where they said Minneapolis is the "land of the Sodomite damned." Bizarre.
The libertarian in my says that they have first amendment rights like everybody else, and is such they have the right to stand on a public corner and say whatever they want. The Irish in me says that if they showed up at one of my loved one's funerals saying these things about them, I would set the libertarian inside of me aside long enough to crack a few skulls. I am honestly surprised that no grieving marine has yet to pop a couple of them.
Here's more information on these utterly repulsive creeps. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fred_Phelps
The following is an excerpt about a group of heaven-sent motorcyclists: "The Patriot Guard Riders are a motorcyclist group comprised primarily of veterans who attend the funerals of members of the U.S. Armed Forces at the invitation of the deceased?s family. The group was initially formed to shelter and protect the funerals from protesters from the Westboro Baptist Church, who claim that the deaths of U.S. service members in Iraq and Afghanistan are divine retribution for American tolerance of homosexuality. The Patriot Guard positions itself to physically shield the mourners from the presence of the Westboro protesters by blocking the protesters from view with their motorcade, or by having members hold American flags. The group also drowns out the protesters' chants by singing patriotic songs or by revving motorcycle engines."
I am blown away. I spent a while digging up the mini book 'Addicted to hate' by Jon Michael Bell and finding the DN reference, then noticed that Nate Phelps himself is in the thread. Wow. Nate, there is a question I have always wanted answered about your estranged family. I would be honoured by a reply. Is there a death wish aspect to the protests? Do they secretly hope that one day somebody is going to lose it and injure/kill one of them, thereby making them martyrs and giving them all the publicity they want. How would they react, privately and in public, if one of them was killed? Do they take the children to protests with the intention of them being exposed to danger? I really hope you are still following this thread. The Addicted to hate reference, BTW, was this:(I should point out that the boys were terrified of their violent father and would have played any game he asked). 'During their teenage years, both Mark and Nate worked as law clerks in their father's office. "When a black client was in there," recalls Nate, "my father would play the 'DN' game with us. It stands for 'dumb nigger'. We would all try to use the acronym as often as possible in the presence of the person involved."' You would have to read the whole book to understand the context in which a good man like Nate had to fight to free himself from his father's evil clutches and malignant influence. Go Nate!
The best thing you can do for an attention whore is to ignore them. If the media would stop reporting on them, and people acted as though they weren't there, eventually they wouldn't be.
So let me get this straight - a few weeks ago over a dozen young activists were convicted for protesting outside of the Supreme Court, but these assholes are still allowed to protests at funerals?
I'm all for free speech, but if we're going to violate that rule, for God's sake lets at least get the people who deserve it!
"Something tells me that today, as hundreds weep not two hundred yards from my office, is not the day to say something nice about the most reviled family in America. But when is the day?"
Um...to answer your rhetorical question, Graeme, how about never?
Nate Phelps: can't wait till your family gets to spend eternity in hell. I'll gladly go to the infernal pit as long as I'm told I can dance on your shoulders as you sink further into the lake of fire; Hitler will probably get a turn as well. I'll give you 3 guesses what people are going to do at YOUR funerals. Tears, yes; of sadness, not quite.
Eric. You sound as if you have a bit of an anger management issue as to rival old Fred's. Chill out. Nate is the one who ISN'T in the cult. He's the person who exposed them.
Eric, I agree with what you say but Nate is the wrong target. He isn't on their side. Read his post again.
Absolutely vile people.
"Excuse me: these people disrupted a FUNERAL?"
Sure. They've "protested" at American soldier funerals, as well.
Fred Phelps has also been rather active in a few Presidential campaigns, and present at one inauguration that I know of, but I suspect his party affiliation may surprise some people. Hint: it's not Republican.
Tim Russert might have mentioned it, who knows.
It’s nice to see someone at least attempt to get the facts straight concerning Westboro Baptist Church.
It’s unfortunate most of the people responding to this post believe that free speech should be abridged for the sake of sentiment, and are thus using you as their whipping boy for daring to say anything even remotely positive about Fred Phelps.
These nuts are not Baptist at all by any means. Of all the Baptist churches I know and have attended, none have such hatred towards anybody. They have no affiliation with any Baptist organization that I know of.
There may be other Baptist churches like this, but not that I am aware of, nor will any Baptist association have anything to do with them I am sure. They are an extreme cult, that is about it.
When the Phelpses go to hell, Tim will have them via satellite (he's not there) for the hour. Their issues will be why Fred was such a spiteful person, why Fred was a prick, and how the Buffalo Bills are doing.
Good Riddance Tim. You were the man.
If these people were actually religious, they would understand that nobody is burning in Hell now.
Someone must have been posing, because i just read a comment from "Nate Phelps" up above... If a Phelps is actually following these comments, then...
Does your family not know the ideas of tolerance/acceptance? These attributes can be practiced without actually agreeing with or liking a certian life style. Hating the homosexual community, and being horrid examples of humanity towards soldier's funerals does not work towards positive change, nor is it "Christ-like". Christians (competant ones) around teh world will tell you that you are living the vary contrary life to how Jesus himself lived. He ate meals with sinners, prostitues, liars, thieves and all sorts of "filths of society". He cared for them and lovingly prodded for them to change. He did NOT however preach about hating such people. He did not rebuke them or turn them away. He tolerated how they lived, despite hating how they lived and still loved them.
Your family or "church" absolutely disgusts me, almost to the degree of terrorist's twisted views on the Muslim faith. That is how i see the Phelps Family. Your roots are somewhat noble, fighting for Civil Rights for all African Americans, but like the terrorist's twisting and warping of the Mulsim faith, so too are you all. In essence, you are destroying your own connections to humanity and society alike. Although i do have disgust, i also have utmost pity. The Phelps children had been enveloped in that mentality for so long, they no longer have the ability to discern why it is wrong. The Phelps parents are simply using these poor children's minds for their own twisted cause, but i can only hope that as the children mature, that someone will wake up and realize what horrible things they have become...
I will not comment on the debate on free speech vs the Phelps clan. Alyzza, dont me so naive. People do not believe free speech should be "abridged". They comment in disgust with the Phelps behavior and impunity to do so. We all have the freedoms to act with such hate... but simply having the freedoms to do so does not make it justified, acceptable or right to ANY degree. It is sickening.
Free speech-wise, I'm with Denis. Fred & Co. are like criminals who voluntarily drop off their own mugshots at the local police station -- we recognize the wrongness of their ideas by the very extremity with which they demonstrate them. There have to be thousands of formerly semi-homophobic people out there who were turned AWAY from homophobia when they saw what it really looks like at full bore, a la Phelps.
When there are crazy ideas floating around in the world, it's better to have a nice, clear picture of what they look like... so decent folks can set to work on the most effective strategy for demolishing them. :)
I don't think that this is the "truth" about the Phelps family. Really, they started their recent spate of protests, as one of the commenters said, out of a martyr complex. And they have no real theology except hate. See Louis Theroux's documentary for the truth.
When it comes to the Phelps I think the quote "I think the lady doth protest too much" might apply. Many times when people are so extreme on a religious issue, they are really just fighting their own demons.
Marco: It's tough to answer that question in a way that would make sense to most people. First, it's important to understand that they really, really believe what they preach. Why they believe it to the degree they do is more instructive then what they believe. It's like trying to really understand what it was like living under Stalin or any state that claimed and practiced absolute control over the people. A time comes when most lose the capacity to think independent of the ideology they're immersed in. Inasmuch as they truly believe that god is protecting them and if one of them were to be killed, it would be god's will, and therefore good, then I would say yes...they do have somewhat of a martyr mentality working there. Thank you for your kind words.
Eric & Chris L: I would ask both of you to go back and read my first post again. Also, do a bit of research about the history of my family. I am in agreement with much of what both of you say. I'm not sure I would go so far as to want to dance on their heads in hell, but I do feel deeply that what they do, under the control of my father, is a manifestation of pure evil as we generally think of the term.
Make no mistake, much of what they believe can fairly be interpreted from the same book that mainstream Christianity uses. It is an aspect of organized religion that has troubled me my whole life. Most of what we consider right and good is believed to have it's roots in Judeo-Christian values. However, much of the evil that has been practiced over the centuries has it's roots in exactly the same place. If this source is said to be the inerrant word of the one true god, how is it possible that so many diametrically opposed views flow from the same source?
Perhaps the good we find in man is...in man. Perhaps the evil we find is also in man. Perhaps evil is simply the deliberate infliction of pain, mental and physical, outside the accepted bounds of a society. Perhaps we, as a society, would do well to put yet another myth behind us and impose rational thought on our future.
@ Nate Phelps. I hope i did not come across as a rant towards you. I was just posing a few general questions and thoughts for the community to think on. I have read much on your families history, but admittedly i do not know much about you. If you truely have been able to seperate yourself from them and speak out against them i commend you for your efforts!
Your words seem encouraging and thoughtful to me. I hope others who read these comments can realize that returning hate with pure hate is not the answer. People should educate themselves about the underlying issues in order to better speak out against the atrocities that the Westboro Church commits: without a simple display of returned hate. But rather, pity for the rest of the Phelps family and sympathy for the victims of said family. Activists should act with care and passion, extremists act with anger and hate.
I am going to read that book that Marcos mentioned "Addicted to Hate" and research a bit about your (Nate Phelps) recent history and seperation from the family... seems i need some catching up.
Cheers, and continue the good work Nate!
Nate,
I enjoyed reading your rational level-headed comments here. In your opinion, if they for some reason made peace with "fags" and "fag enablers", would there be any other single issue that would motivate them?
Jeff
Excuse me: these people disrupted a FUNERAL? No, there is no possible justification for such an exhibition ofh gross (and grotesque) disrespect. As should have been said much louder when Hillary Clinton gave voice to her secret desire that her opponent be assasinated: some things just are NOT done.
Posted by Miande | June 18, 2008 7:00 PM