Fred Phelps is apparently near death

[m52nickerson]

Read it again, Fred was excommunicated in August 2013.

Yes it does, I read it wrong. 

[Ultimate Paragon]

Maybe he started to mellow out in his old age?  Or went senile?

[mellenORL]

The article does not say Fred Phelps was excommunicated.  It was talking about other former members of the church that have been.

The article quotes Fred Phelps' son, Nate Phelps, saying that Fred was excommunicated in August 2013;

I’ve learned that my father, Fred Phelps, Sr., pastor of the “God Hates Fags” Westboro Baptist Church, was ex-communicated from the “church” back in August of 2013. He is now on the edge of death at Midland Hospice house in Topeka, Kansas.

I’m not sure how I feel about this. Terribly ironic that his devotion to his god ends this way. Destroyed by the monster he made.

I feel sad for all the hurt he’s caused so many. I feel sad for those who will lose the grandfather and father they loved. And I’m bitterly angry that my family is blocking the family members who left from seeing him, and saying their good-byes.

[Rabbit of Caerbannog]

And not a single fuck was given.

[ironbite]

I wonder what got him ex-communicated. didn't he start the church? Oh well, he can't die soon enough for me anyways

Given his virulent homophobia my guess is he confessed to having engaged in a homosexual act or two thousand.

Not even necessarily that. The WBC is the prime candidate for a purity crisis and Phelps apparently just wasn't hateful enough.

I wonder who they replaced him with?

Shirly Phelps-Roper who's more hateful then her father if you can believe that.

[Sigmaleph]

I'm with the commentors (sp?) saying to let the family have their funeral in peace. I don't like WBC either...hell, I once got my picture in the paper arguing with them at a counterprotest...but I think staging a protest, while possibly justified, would only fuel their martyrdom complex and make them double down on their stance. Better to let them fade into obscurity.

Also, it would be the most hypocritical thing in the world.

"Picketing funerals because you don't like gay people is horrible! Picketing funerals because you don't like homophobes is perfectly fine, though."

[fancy_kitten]

I'm with the commentors (sp?) saying to let the family have their funeral in peace. I don't like WBC either...hell, I once got my picture in the paper arguing with them at a counterprotest...but I think staging a protest, while possibly justified, would only fuel their martyrdom complex and make them double down on their stance. Better to let them fade into obscurity.

Also, it would be the most hypocritical thing in the world.

"Picketing funerals because you don't like gay people is horrible! Picketing funerals because you don't like homophobes is perfectly fine, though."

They wouldn't just be picketing the funeral of a homophobe though, they'd be picketing the funeral of someone who organized and funded a group that picketed thousands of funerals of people who died in far more tragic ways than going out naturally in your old age.  I don't really think it would be that hypocritical, not unless they did it to someone who was in no way affiliated with the WBC and didn't support their actions, but happened to be homophobic.  I'm not saying I'm for it at all, forgive one's enemies and all, but I really don't think it'd be unjustified if someone did or wanted to.

[Sigmaleph]

They wouldn't just be picketing the funeral of a homophobe though, they'd be picketing the funeral of someone who organized and funded a group that picketed thousands of funerals of people who died in far more tragic ways than going out naturally in your old age

Fair enough, but I don't see that as a meaningful difference. "Picketing funerals is a pretty shitty thing to do" seems like the basic reason to be opposed to Phelps, not "picketing funerals of unrelated people who died at war is a shitty thing to do".

Granted, if someone's opposition to Phelps was strictly that he picketed military funerals over gay rights, as opposed to that he picketed funerals at all, sure, they're not being hypocrites*. I find it hard to accept that Phelps' problem was solely that he picketed the wrong funerals for the wrong reason and if he had chosen a suitably horrible dead person and a different cause we would all be cheering right next to him, though.



*Also known as the "You can't fail to honour your principles if you don't have any" defence against hypocrisy.

[Barbarella]

I gotta wonder why they would kick the old prune out? He started the darn thing! It's HIS hate cult! Either he had an epiphany & repented of his evil ways, was caught getting all gay with a guy, expressed something gay or they're so deranged that getting old and dying is a sin!

[Ghoti]

I'm honestly not sure what picketing his funeral would accomplish, besides fueling the WBC's martyr delusion complex. I mean, yeah, he's a shitbag, but there's really no point in making a big ruckus next to his corpse.

[R. U. Sirius]

The comments section in that blog post does include some posts that say the church essentially teaches that dying at ALL means God hates you, and for this reason they expected Fred to be immortal. They don't provide citations, though, so take that with a grain of sodium-based seasoning.

[fancy_kitten]

They wouldn't just be picketing the funeral of a homophobe though, they'd be picketing the funeral of someone who organized and funded a group that picketed thousands of funerals of people who died in far more tragic ways than going out naturally in your old age

Fair enough, but I don't see that as a meaningful difference. "Picketing funerals is a pretty shitty thing to do" seems like the basic reason to be opposed to Phelps, not "picketing funerals of unrelated people who died at war is a shitty thing to do".

Granted, if someone's opposition to Phelps was strictly that he picketed military funerals over gay rights, as opposed to that he picketed funerals at all, sure, they're not being hypocrites*. I find it hard to accept that Phelps' problem was solely that he picketed the wrong funerals for the wrong reason and if he had chosen a suitably horrible dead person and a different cause we would all be cheering right next to him, though.



*Also known as the "You can't fail to honour your principles if you don't have any" defence against hypocrisy.

I agree, I guess the real thing that would define the act of doing to Phelps what he and his family did to us as hypocritical would be whether one considered his actions wrong because of who he did it to, or because harassing funeral goers is intrinsically wrong. 

I gotta wonder why they would kick the old prune out? He started the darn thing! It's HIS hate cult! Either he had an epiphany & repented of his evil ways, was caught getting all gay with a guy, expressed something gay or they're so deranged that getting old and dying is a sin!

Even considering who we're talking about, I doubt it's the latter.  Considering how much they loved publicity and getting people violently riled up, they had to know that it wouldn't be unheard of for someone to drive by one of their protests and toss a lit Molotov into the crowd.  If putting yourself at risk for dying were a sin to them, their own protests would have been abominations in their eyes.  My guesses are either your first one (an epiphany) or his kids decided to get revenge in a way they knew would really crush him. 

[Ultimate Paragon]

When Fred croaks, my guess is this is what will happen to him:



Seems like a fitting hell for a man who thrived off attention.

Anyway, the WBC has truly shown how horrible it is.  Keep in mind, this is a new low for a group so bad, the Ku Klux Klan has legitimate reason to look down on them.  It's one church I wouldn't mind seeing burn down.

[Veras]

The church is refusing to say why he was excommunicated:

"We don't owe any talk to you about that," (WBC spokesman Steve) Drain said. "We don't discuss our internal church dealings with anybody. It's only because of his notoriety that you are asking.""

http://cjonline.com/news/2014-03-16/wbc-spokesman-said-fred-phelps-sr-was-healthy-month-he-entered-hospice

The excommunication actually seems pretty cold, too.  He and his wife had lived above the church, and they kicked him out.

They are also saying that nobody replaced Phelps, and implied that he wasn't as completely in charge of the church as most people had assumed.

As for who is the leader of Westboro Baptist Church, there is no head of the church, Drain said.

"The church of Jesus Christ doesn't have a head," he said. "The Lord Jesus Christ is our head."

Multiple elders have preached at Westboro Baptist Church for some time, Drain said. Anecdotal reports of people who have observed preaching at the church confirm that.

I do have to say that I'm not looking forward to seeing how people react to his death.  There can be no doubt that he was a horrible man, but I refuse to celebrate the death of any human being, and I fear that many people who disagreed with Phelps and Westboro will do so.

By the way, is it just me or is Drain the perfect last name for a member of WBC?

[Cerim Treascair]

To steal a line from my own writing in regards to this...

"I grant unto thee... woe."


In short, this is going to be the tipping point where the WBC either becomes so rabid that they get legally bitchslapped hard enough that they never recover, or they fade into irrelevance, even as they scream at the top of their lungs... the 'being ignored by everyone', as mentioned earlier.