Opinionist: God Hates Fags – Coming to a School Near You.

By · March 22, 2009 at 12:55 pm · No comments · Latest News · Report an error ·

westborobaptist.jpg
The considered opinion of the Westboro Baptist Church.

In the UK, we can generally ignore our attention-seeking religious bigots. We see them as a trifling nuisance who, when starved of media oxygen, fade into obscurity. Take Stephen Green from Christian Voice, who you’ll remember as the man who organised the Jerry Springer: The Opera protests. So abysmal and ineffective was their campaign that they actually contributed to the repeal of our archaic blasphemy laws! Green regularly hands out leaflets denouncing the sins of homosexuality, divorce, sex education and abortion, but was still able to claim, with a straight face, that the atheist bus adverts were a bad idea because, and I quote, “people don’t like being preached at”. Truly, future historians will consider Christian Voice among the finest examples of what they will no doubt label “The Decade of Epic Fail”. Dealing with his sort is very easy – all you need to do is remember the name of him and his organisation, and then ignore every single newspaper article that either reports his press releases as genuine news, or feels the need, in the name of “balance”, to turn to him for a quote.

However, America has a much more vicious breed of zealot – The Westboro Baptist Church. Run by pastor Fred Phelps, these douchebags believe that God hates America, and indeed the world, because we allow and accept homosexuality. They make signs proclaiming “God Hates Fags” “Thank God for AIDS” and “Thank God For 9/11″, and display them at gay rights marches, political rallies, and even funerals. You read that right – they picket funerals. Anyone is fair game, be it the students who died at Virginia Tech, the victims of the Amish School Shooting, and even the funerals of dead soldiers. They preach hate, they say, “because the Bible preaches hate”, and they picket funerals because “when people go to funerals, they have thoughts of mortality, heaven, hell, eternity… on their minds. It’s the perfect time to warn them of things to come”.

And now, they’re coming to London.

On March 27th, from 2pm to 3pm, they’ll attempt to picket George Tomlinson Primary School in Waltham Forest, Leytonstone – a school whose LGBT history month has, so the TES reports, “virtually eliminated homophobic bullying”. Their vitriolic and barely-literate press release has to be seen to be believed. Most interestingly, they don’t seem to be very troubled by the fact, that, er, they’ve been banned from entering the UK. But as Fred’s daughter Shirley points out, “There are members of WBC that are not named Phelps, so [the authorities] might have their work cut out for them.”

Clearly, there’s no danger of them converting anyone – their church has less than 100 members, most of whom are directly related to ol’ Fred – but the distress they cause to others from their relentless campaigning simply cannot be overstated. These venomous pests have just two objectives in their life: to preach hate, and to create as much heartache and sorrow in others as they possibly can.

We Londoners have two choices. Our first is to treat them like we treat Christian Voice: by ignoring them. Don’t give them a single moment of attention, and hope that they go away. This is a charming idea, and one which I dearly wish would work, but a quick glance at their history shows that this simply won’t happen. And besides, rational thinking clearly isn’t something that comes naturally to them.

Our second choice is to fight back – and hard. With that in mind, why not book next Friday off of work, and protest against their protest? Take rainbow flags, take leaflets and colour and music and fun, and most importantly, take some interesting picket signs. I suggest “God Hates Fred Phelps”, “God Hates Westboro Baptist Church”, or as a friend of mine suggested, “God Hates Overcompensating For Obvious Closet Homosexuality”. Can you think of any other equally appropriate picket slogans? Please do let us know in the comments.

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  • http://null BraveNewMalden

    “We Hate Phelps” say both God and the Devil.

  • Dave

    These guys are quite something. I saw a documentary on them a few years ago, and after a few minutes of stunned silence it was practically impossible to hold back from shouting at the screen in reaction to their hate-filled lunacy.

    However I’m not sure that, in this case, the term ‘religious bigot’ applies. Although they name and style themselves as part of a Baptist Church, their stance is so profoundly un-Christian (and in fact, opposed to the fundamental beliefs of most organised religions) as to make a complete mockery of their name. They are part of a small cult, pure and simple.

    As amusing as the idea of counter-protesting is, I don’t think I’ll be bothering with it. I’m pretty much of the opinion is that the best way to deal with absolute nutters like this is to ignore them. After all, if we took time out of our lives to actively protest against every group of delusional cretins that spewed out nonsense with zero credibility, there would be little time left for anything else.

    The world is full of little pockets of haters, absurd conspiracy theorists and the like, but paying much attention to them only fuels their fire. These people are like the idiots who log onto a cricket discussion forum (for example) for the sole purpose of posting a message saying “cricket is for losers”. Arguing with these people is just a waste of air.

  • http://jaekaygoesforth.blogspot.com LondonJae

    “God Hates Overcompensating For Obvious Closet Homosexuality”

    Yes that’s right let’s combat homophobia by flinging homophobic and childish insults at the fundies. That’ll teach ‘em!

    And some of us homosexuals don’t mind WBC. At least they are honest about what their religion stands for, i.e. hate unlike some of the other two faced proponents of religious belief.

    Plus with every word they speak they drive the undecided away from their insanity and their homophobia into the waiting arms of us liberals. Check out “Phags for Phelps” for a campaign by a gay American to allow the Phelps to continue to spread their hate, as each protest they organise is a blow against homophobia everywhere.

    We just need to provide the moral support to the organisations they attack to ensure they don’t give in to the pressure from these hate groups.

    Freedom of speech is not just for the nice people.

  • http://undefined Chris Coltrane

    Dave – Indeed, they’re almost unbelievable. Everything they say and do seems like a dreadful parody.

    I definitely do agree with you that the the world’s “little pockets of haters, absurd conspiracy theorists and the like” are best dealt with by simply ignoring them. I think it’s okay to make an exception for the type of groups who actually picket the funerals of victims of high school shootings – they strike me as the type who won’t go away simply by being ignored – but I suppose only time will tell.

    PS When you ran up that tower the other day, did you do it with haste? Haha! With haste!! Do you see what I did there? Because your last name is Haste! HA! Brilliant. (PPS You did a brilliant job on the tower climb mate)

  • http://undefined Chris Coltrane

    LondonJae – I do apologise if I gave you the impression that I think they shouldn’t be allowed to say what they’re saying. On the contrary, I agree with you entirely when you say that “Freedom of speech is not just for the nice people.” That’s why, instead of saying that they shouldn’t protest, I’m saying that we should counter-protest.

    And I definitely agree with you point where you mentioned that folk like them “drive the undecided away from their insanity and their homophobia into the waiting arms of us liberals”. I can imagine that for every one person they convert to their church, they convert about a hundred thousand people away. The number of members of their church would certainly make this a very believable idea.

  • ides_of_march

    Are the imams who preach death to the ‘infidel’ at Finsbury mosque or blow up London buses in the name of allah considered bigots too? Just curious.

    I think they’re a lot bigger problem for Britian than a few inbred lunatics from Kansas. Great way to ignore the 8oo pound gorilla sitting in the corner of the room though.

  • http://undefined ides_of_march

    FYI: the repulsive Phelps idiots are widely despised in conservative and Christian circles in the US. They usually protest at soldiers’ funerals and many other Christians come to counter-protest them.

    The whole group is one relatively (pun intended) small yet annoying of bunch people from the same family and when you see that they are more mentally ill than anything else, you might actually pity them more than take their politics seriously. Don’t make the mistake of painting all American Christian conservatives with the same brush.

  • Dave

    @Chris – man I love those ‘haste’ puns. They never get old. ;-)

    Cheers mate!

  • http://null djsnow

    How about “Westboro Baptist Church is teh ghey”

  • http://silentbob9484.livejournal.com/ peel_acres

    As the school is 2 mins from my house I went down to join the counter protest but it seems the Phelps were refused entry to the UK so all that was left were a few protesters and no Phelps family to berate.

    A bit of a shame but ultimately the right decision by the authorities.

  • http://undefined clare

    i am seldom stuck for words, but i am disgusted at these people i always believed god loves you no matter what, forgiveness compassion and understanding we are in a diffrent time where times move on and everyday issues become acceptable are our way of life.How could god possibly be capable of such crimes as 9/11 he didnt drive the plain into the towers tht was evil beyond belief and god is against evil so wouldent that be contradicting his beliefs ? something satan maybee capable of but not god, these people are the evil ones preaching all this rubbish and name calling who are the evil ones here, so if we steal food to feed the hungry we are evil or use makeup to cover a horrific scar we are evil? but to preach and speak such awful evil is acceptable constantly contradicts itself! utter rubbish im surprised they are allowed to have a website and preach at funeral of our soldiers they are the ones whom should be punished for there actions , heres a message for them ” THE WORLD HATES YOU ” and your sinning ! life is once and precious and throughout we learn and strive we make our own choices and as we have been blessed with life cherish it and be happy choose to live free and as you wish god will love you regardless. the god they preach to doesent exist and if he did and was capable of such things then i have lost my faith!

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