March 21, 2014

The following excerpts are from the blog “Fred Phelps: The Symptom of our Sickness” on Joe Dallas’s website: …”Fred Phelps, founder and head buffoon of the Westboro Baptist God-Hates-Fags cult, has exited, and tears are few. His notoriety was achieved through a putrid combination of street theater and sadism, as he and his small following of family members picketed the funerals of AIDs patients and American soldiers, hoisting signs that celebrated the deaths being mourned as good, even delightful. No one was spared his bile, neither the parents of openly gay Matthew Shepherd, whose murder Phelps made an industry out of, nor the families of innocent children gunned down by a madman in an Amish school. The guy was, in true satanic form, an equal opportunity tormentor.”

“Two days ago he went to meet his Maker whom he never represented and, quite possibly, never knew. I cannot say rest in peace. I’ll only say God’s will be done.” …

“So if there’s a takeaway lesson from the life and death of this strange, sad man, I’d say it’s that we make celebrities of buffoons and, conversely, we can choose to unmake them. I dream of an America where grace, intelligence, industry, kindness and beauty will advance a person’s career, while repulsive words and actions abort it.”

“I’m not holding my breath; only the Lord’s coming will usher in the truest beauty. Meanwhile, when the buffoon sells his wares and himself in the public square, I can choose to turn away, keep walking, change the channel.”

“I can’t stop the sickness. But I surely don’t have to feed it.”