Down with Fred Phelps!

[Marvolo]

I think some sort of legal action should have kept him from being able to picket funerals and harrass grieving families. I'm honestly surprised none of the mourners at those funerals killed him.

I think he had a moral objection to homosexuality, and while I feel everyone is free to their opinion, but he had no right to express his opinion in that way.

I think in his heart, he thought he was doing the right thing.

Still, it makes me angry to see people posting such horrible pictures of someone who is deceased. I got mad when people gloated over Bin Laden and Hussein's death too.

We're all human.

I understand people's anger towards the guy, but I think everyone is getting way too carried way. It's not like he murdered or raped anyone. He just said some things that pissed people off.

You got mad when people rejoiced that we had finally caught and killed OBL? The monster who caused the deaths of 3,000 americans in a single day?

 

[CJ]

I mean, I bet you're as imperfect and flawed as the rest of us. I bet as a human (as you like to remind us is so important) you're just as susceptible to feelings of revenge and animus as the rest of us. And I think your whole morally superior act in this thread, telling us how to react, how we're no better than Fred Phelps, etc, is just that…. an act.

I wasn't trying to come off as morally superior, high and mighty or holier than thou, it just made me me angry to see comments like that directed towards someone who just lost their life.

Yes, I am susceptible to those feelings, and I have had them. But the guy died, so I felt like people should cool down a bit.

 

[Thundercrack85]

I'm not a Christian. Or a pretentious humanitarian. I don't have to forgive. I don't have to look for redeeming qualities.

A terrible man has died. A man who actually went out of his way to add misery to the lives of people he didn't even know at funerals.

Quite frankly, I'm not even sure if the before mentioned dictators were such *****. Even they had some standards.

Fred Phelps is dead, and the world is a better place for it.

 

[CJ]

You don't have to be a Christian in order to forgive or have empathy for someone. Those are things all humans should be born with.

 

[Thundercrack85]

It's a waste of good empathy. Fred Phelps shouldn't even be given a proper burial.

 

[JJJ's Ulcer]

I wasn't trying to come off as morally superior, high and mighty or holier than thou, it just made me me angry to see comments like that directed towards someone who just lost their life.

Yes, I am susceptible to those feelings, and I have had them. But the guy died, so I felt like people should cool down a bit.

If you had phrased it that way, I wouldn't have come down on you. But you said "yuck you people are disgusting" and told us we're no better than him, which was just such a ridiculously over-the-top false moral equivalence. I guess it's the way you expressed that sentiment, rather than the sentiment itself which ticked me off. Anyway, fair enough. I made my point, you made your's.

 

[Marvolo]

You don't have to be a Christian in order to forgive or have empathy for someone. Those are things all humans should be born with.

I have empathy but only to a point.

And a person must be worthy of forgiveness. Phelps wasnt. He should go in the ground and be forgotten as quickly as possible.

 

[Thundercrack85]

He lived a terrible life, and we should be happy it's over.

 

[JJJ's Ulcer]

I will say this. He inadvertantly helped progress gay rights, but only because he was such an over-the-top hatemonger that his extremism turned off people with lesser prejudices who didn't want to side with him, and helped generate sympathy for the gay rights movement.

 

[Kelly]

The fact that this disgusting piece of trash has a thread that is 8 pages long just makes me shake my head.

 

[Thundercrack85]

To be honest, I don't really give a damn about his gay bashing. I mean, that would certainly make me dislike him, but that's not exactly an uncommon practice. But him going out of his way to harass people at funerals? Who does that?

I am amazed, and admittedly somewhat disappointed that no one killed him.

 

[Marvolo]

Its a good thing he wasnt killed. He doesnt need to be a martyr for his cause.

 

[Thundercrack85]

What cause? Being a ****?

 

[Anubis]

Yeah, pretty much.

Of course, it depends on who did the killing. If it was a pissed off homosexual that killed him, then yeah, martyr. If it was a pissed off parent of a soldier who just had their son or daughters funeral ruined by these crazy asshats? Then that's just justice.

 

[Schlosser85]

I agree with Marvolo though. I wouldn't have felt sorry for him if someone killed him (and was kind of surprised their funeral heckling didn't get them shot or at least assaulted at some point), but it would have made him a martyr to his followers.

 

[Thundercrack85]

All six of them.

Still a net positive in my book.

 

[Marvolo]

Martyrdon has a way of increasing followers. Its not worth the risk. The way it went down was best. It was a natural death that got a quick media blurb and now its over and done with. Him being murdered would have been catnip for the media. Giving the man even more presence.

 

[Thundercrack85]

Honestly, I don't see anyone giving a damn. Even the most outspoken anti-gay evangelical hate groups didn't want anything to do with this guy, if only because he harassed military funerals.

It would be amusing to see how much money the defense fund for the attacker got.

Oh well, what's done is done. He's dead, and the world is a slightly better for it.

 

[Ant-manic]

I wasn't trying to come off as morally superior, high and mighty or holier than thou, it just made me me angry to see comments like that directed towards someone who just lost their life.

Yes, I am susceptible to those feelings, and I have had them. But the guy died, so I felt like people should cool down a bit.

he wasn't beaten to death by homophobes. he died of old age after living a long life of championing the kind of bigotry that would lead to death-by-homophobe.

 

[Schlosser85]

Martyrdon has a way of increasing followers. Its not worth the risk. The way it went down was best. It was a natural death that got a quick media blurb and now its over and done with. Him being murdered would have been catnip for the media. Giving the man even more presence.

This.

He was an ignorant old man who died in a hospice. Move along, nothing dramatic to see here...

 

[JJJ's Ulcer]

I wouldn't have cared if Fred Phelps was assassinated, but it's definitely for the best that he wasn't. It's just a shame he made it to his 80's, while the vast majority of the funerals he picketed were for people (KIA soldiers, young gay people, actors/celebrities who died early) whose lives were cut much shorter. That to me reaffirms the world is fundamentally an unfair place.

 

[Schlosser85]

I guess the only solace for the families of the gays and soldiers he heckled is that ten thousand of Fred Phelps wouldn't equal one of a lot of the people he was sure were Hell-bound.

 

[bullets]

I don't want to dance over his grave , but I'm glad he passed away. Good riddance Fred Phelps , you miserable phony. Hopefully members of his family will "see the light" and defect from the church. This won't Chang e things but they need a wake up call.

 

[DeGenerate10]

It'll suck if he turned out to be right about god

 

[Schlosser85]

I have a very hard time seeing an all-wise benevolent being caring about people's sexual orientations. That's kind of a conflict, to me.