Confirmed: Rev. Fred Phelps is officially batshit crazy. Just in case there were any lingering doubts. I suppose that unless someone rips the heads off of gay people on a daily basis, Phelps will protest. (And YES, it is wonderfully and deliciously appropriate that Falwell's followers have to suffer the same kind of nastiness that Jerry visited on us during his life. Karma can be SUCH a bitch.)
And notice in the last paragraph that Falwell didn't get any big time GOP folks turning out for his funeral. (Borrowed from Sunset Boulevard: "Jerry Falwell? You used to be big." "I AM big! It's the GOP's tent that got small." Ooh, imagining Jerry Falwell dressed as Norma Desmond definitely kills my appetite. ;) )
But Fred also sounds pretty desperate. He feels almost ...promiscuous in whom he protests. As long as it makes the news, I guess the Westboro Baptist Church will show up to picket. Call them the Hate Floozies, if you will.
Is there no end to the indignities that Tinky Winky as to suffer from the loss of his pal Jerry?
Phelps Clan Pickets Falwell Funeral
by 365Gay.com Newscenter Staff
Posted: May 22, 2007 - 3:00 pm ET
(Lynchburg, Virginia) About a half dozen members of a Kansas church that denounces homosexuality protested Tuesday afternoon at the funeral of evangelist Jerry Falwell.
The members of Westobo Baptist Church carried placards accusing Falwell of being in league with gays and of cozying up to Israel.
The church, which operates the GodHatesFags Web site, had warned Lynchburg police in advance they were coming.
On its site Westboro, run by Rev. Fred Phelps, called Falwell, a "corpulent false prophet" and said he"spent his entire life prophesying lies and false doctrines like 'God loves everyone.'"
In attacking Falwell the church says he "warmly praised Christ-rejecting Jews, pedophile-condoning Catholics, money-grubbing compromisers, practicing fags like Mel White (of Souflorce), and backsliders like Billy Graham and Robert Schuler, etc."
Police set aside a small area across from Thomas Road Baptist Church, Falwell's church where the funeral was being conducted, for the protestors.
A spokesperson for the Lynchburg Police Department told 365Gay.com that members of the group "Christian Bikers" parked in front of the area blocking the Phelps clan from the view of mourners.
The Westboro group left after about 45 minutes, and well before the funeral began.
Phelps and the church first came to national attention when he organized a protest by his followers outside the 1998 funeral for Matthew Shepherd, the gay college student who was beaten to death in Wyoming. The killing, Phelps' protest, and the reaction of townsfolk led to the play "The Laramie Project."
Church members routinely demonstrate at the funerals of AIDS victims and most recently at the funerals of soldiers killed in Iraq.
Falwell, who died last week at the age of 73, was no friend to the gay community.
Following the terrorist attacks in New York and Washington in 2001 Falwell declared that gays and pro choice advocates were to blame.
Speaking on the 700 Club religious program Falwell said, "The abortionists have got to bear some burden for this because God will not be mocked. And when we destroy 40 million little innocent babies, we make God mad. I really believe that the pagans, and the abortionists, and the feminists, and the gays and the lesbians who are actively trying to make that an alternative lifestyle, the ACLU, People For the American Way, all of them who have tried to secularize America. I point the finger in their face and say 'you helped this happen'."
In 2003 Falwell announced that he was putting aside everything to devote his time to passage of a federal constitutional ban on gay marriage.
"I am dedicating my talents, time and energies over the next few years to the passage of an amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which will protect the traditional family from its enemies who wish to legalize same-sex marriage and other diverse "family" forms," Falwell said.
In the 2004 election campaign he worked with Republicans to use same-sex marriage as a wedge issue.
A week after the November election he announced he was organizing battle plans for what he called an "evangelical revolution." Falwell said that the election showed that Americans want to return to "traditional values".
He promised to roll back gay rights laws in communities across the country.
He also denounced the Teletubbies TV show, calling one of the characters gay.
Nearly 8,000 mourners attended the evangelist's funeral, but in an indication that the onetime powerhouse of Christian conservativism had lost his clout near the end was evidenced by who was not there.
None of the GOP presidential candidates attended the funeral. The Bush White House, which at one time courted Falwell's support sent only a midlevel aide
