I just saw this linked from News of the Weird Daily. Some of the GBLT community have started an organization called "Phags for Phelps" to - get this - support anti-homosexuality crusader Fred Phelps.
It sounds backwards at first, but after reading about it, I think it's brilliant!
Phelps is...ugly. His heart is ugly. If you've never heard of him, he and his "church" (mostly family members) picket funerals of AIDS victims. The one that really put them in the news was the funeral of Matthew Shepard, if that rings a bell. Lately he's also picketed funerals for soldiers killed in Iraq, ostensibly because their deaths are the result of a country going to hell in a handbasket for its permissive attitudes towards homosexuality. He's not allowed to picket soldiers' funerals anymore, at least.
The man is warped, his family is warped. But they are good at what they do and smart enough to back it up. His group (not the man himself) came to my university once when our theater group performed a play about the Matthew Shepard case. They had to bring in extra security from the county sheriff's office. It was creepy.
Anyway, Phags for Phelps. I love it! Their deal is that Phelps is actually the greatest pro-gay advocate there is, because he is such an unadulterated bigot and makes people so uncomfortable. By being such an overt homophobe, he is actually outing the phenomenon of stealth-homophobia and showing us how ugly bigotry can be, even when it's couched behind "politically correct" phrases. So their goal is to "help them spread their message of hate in order that it may be ridiculed and despised by the widest audience possible."
I mean, sure, it might not work or it might even backfire somehow. It's not going to teach Fred Phelps a lesson - he's not someone you can argue with or convince of being in error. He's one of those that construes everything as proof in his favor. We can bang our heads on the wall as long as we like; he will not be changed. But maybe the rest of us will - and that's where we have to invest our energy and our efforts. So I think this is just genius!
nytquill17 posted on Jan 25, 2008
| views: 163
Comments
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silverwhisper said on Jan 25, 2008....
omg...that's utterly brilliant!
ed -
the_infernal_optimist said on Jan 25, 2008....
That's wild! I love it!
~Infernal
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Eilan said on Jan 25, 2008....
Awesome!
Had you heard that WBC is going to be picketing at Heath Ledger's funeral?
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nytquill17 said on Jan 25, 2008....
Yeah, I saw that. It bothers me, and it should, so I guess it's good that it does (but then Heath Ledger dying has really upset me to begin with, for some reason I can't figure out). I also saw that there are going to be barricades at his funeral so maybe at least his family will have a little privacy. -
the_infernal_optimist said on Jan 25, 2008....
It's sick that anyone should have to have freakin' barricades at a funeral - but nobody needs to see the Phelps crap. And honestly, when they came to our campus it scared me a little - they were such zealots...and they had children waving those homophobic, hateful signs!
~Infernal
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nytquill17 said on Jan 26, 2008....
Oh god, I remember that. It made me sick to my stomach to see those kids. I guess in part because of what I'd been through in my own home, I knew exactly what some of those kids were going to go through later in life - and the thought that some of them would just accept it and never bat an eye was even more terrifying. Adults can choose to believe whatever crap they want to, but to force it on kids who don't know any better and will believe it because you tell them to and because they have no choice... -
the_infernal_optimist said on Jan 26, 2008....
What really gets me is that they're teaching their children to hate...in the name of [God's] love. :-p How much more twisted can you get?
~Infernal
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silverwhisper said on Jan 26, 2008....
you really can't. it's really quite sad.
ed -
nytquill17 said on Jan 26, 2008....
Well...that's what I was taught, in a way. "Hate" in itself was always a bad thing. Christians are supposed to love. But when you are led to believe that you know what is right and wrong, for everyone, because God told you so...that it's okay to be judgmental so long as you're on the right side...that everybody who doesn't think like you is wrong, and if they are wrong enough, condemned... It's just a hop, skip, and a jump from there to the Crusades, isn't it?
And my case is far from extreme. This was no cult or sect, just fundamentalism. Not even hardcore fundamentalism. My parents were well-educated both in general and about their religion. They approach their religion with logic and reasoning (my dad says, "God gave us brains because he meant for us to use them!") They're not kooky people. They don't believe kooky things. But look at what I learned anyway.
It's all just crazy, really.
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