His hate was like a yardstick of fuckery by which other haters could only come up short. I'm sure many nasty little garden-variety haters, if ever having a moment of conscience, might have consoled themselves that they were not, at least, "as bad as those Westboro Baptist people."
I find it depressing to consider that his grotesque little church survives him, as well as a few generations of deeply wounded people who find (comfort, satisfaction, cosmic Stockholm Syndrome?) something of value in a church that is fueled by a vision of a vengeful, abusive, miserable diety that would rather be feared than loved. It appears to me that Phelps created a God in his own image. At the end, he had been excommunicated for asking his churchmembers to be kinder to one another--apparently the biggest sacrilege. I could almost pity the old man. But, no.
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A number of his grandchildren have left the church, which seems to be all family.
At least he lived long enough to see same-sex marriage gain some serious traction in this country.
The whole thing is/was(can we hope?) just a cynical and cruel
money-making scam.
~
The guy was little more than a clown. He got a lot of attention because he was provocative and outrageous. But other than his ability to draw attention to his church, Phelps was a complete failure. The very same period that he campaigned so publicly against homosexuality corresponded with the largest change in public opinion towards acceptance of gays, as well as an unprecedented expansion of legal recognition of gay unions. As usual, the Onion cut right to the point. It's hard to imagine a less successful political campaign than Phelps'.
Voltaire's one prayer was "O Lord, make my enemies ridiculous." He had a point.
Hi Vixen,
Wow! what have you done with your site? Very snazzy.
In a strange way Phelps was a unifying figure.
Gays hated him, conservatives hated him, liberals hated him, the military hated him, and Christians hated him. Today it is sometimes hard to find a point on which everyone, ubiquitously, agrees. But universal distaste for Phelps put us all under one roof, so to speak.
I idly wonder what made Phelps tick, and I confess I really don't have a clue. There are symptoms that allow you to recognize sociopaths and sadism and psychosis, and a host of behaviors, but I'm not sure that Phelps fit into any of those categories. He did not seem to be insane. He was not dissociated. When I would hear him on TV he was lucid enough and consistent with his own basic principles, and someone dissociated would not have been able to pull that off. To me, he's kind of an enigma.
Maybe he was just a man with a mission, preaching the gospel of his own Mein Kampf.
--Formerly Amherst
Hi, Formerly Amherst--just a little bit of color for spring. What I will say always struck me as strange about the Phelps clan was that, hateful as they were, they faced substantial backlash because they were generally standing right on the last nerve of some of their targets--especially those soldier-funeral demonstrations. But in tv interviews and the like--they took the emotion they got in return as if totally expected and welcomed. Either as if they took to heart the idea that "they will be hated for His name's sake". Or like they'd sue in a heartbeat if someone gave them a well-earned poke.
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