For those of you who dont know, Frederick Waldron Phelps is a septegenarian former lawyer from Kansas who was disbarred in 1977 for, as far as I can discern, spending a week cross-examining an innocent court reporter by entirely ignoring the case at hand and instead spending his working days accusing her of performing depraved and entirely unrelated sex acts. Quite what his aim was in doing this is unclear, but if it was to lose his job, then it was a resounding success - it certainly wasn't a success by any other measure. But the insanity doesn't stop there. It's what he's been up to ever since that's the really mad part.
Since then, Fred Phelps has become the founder and spiritual leader of what is known as the 'Westboro Baptist Church'. That's the group that have become somewhat infamous for going around America protesting against the military funerals of soldiers killed in the 'War on Terror'. Now, you may or may not agree with the 'War on Terror', but if you agree with Phelps' reasons for protesting, then there are several good psychotherapists I can refer you to. The reason is thus: Fred Phelps believes that the September 11th attacks were God's punishment for America's toleration of homosexuality, and anything that the Americans do other than banning 'fags' (his word, not mine) in reaction to that is bad. Bad enough, evidently, for him to round up his church, pile them all into a coach and come and gloat at grieving families. But that's just a little background. It isn't nearly the craziest thing he's ever said. Take a couple of seconds for your sense of disbelief to pass, then read on.
#1 Crazy Old Bastard idea: God Hates Sweden (dot com)
I'll start off with the most ludicrous. For the last few years, one of the sites that has been run by the Westboro Baptist Church - I'll call them 'the WBC' from now on, because anything else I might care to use would be libel - has been GodHatesSweden dot com (I'm not going to give them the extra traffic by linking to them directly - type it in yourself if you want a good laugh). According to Phelps, God hates the country of blondes, fjords and eating rotten fish for your tea because they tolerate homosexuals, and the reason Swedes died in the 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake was because God sent it to destroy them for their tolerance of their spandex-clad bretheren. The facts that it was peak holiday season in place popular with Nordic countries, or that if God hated Sweden he could quite easily cut out the middle man and hit Sweden instead of a far flung ocean on the other side of the world where a few Swedes happened to be sunbathing, seemed lost on him. The reasons why are, in turn, lost on me.
#2 Crazy Old Bastard idea: Who Ruled Nazi Germany?
I'll give you a clue: He doesn't think it was the Nazis.
Moving on to what would probably be the most offensive were it not the most patently stupid, during a speech against John Kerry and Wesley Clark in which he also claimed all Jews "hate God" and were "smitten with madness" (but, as offensive as that is, it isn't nearly mad enough for this post), claimed that - and this is a direct quote - "Homosexuals and Jews dominated Nazi Germany". Now I don't know if Mr. Phelps has ever picked up a history book, but I'm pretty sure that at one point or another on his way to getting his law degree he must have passed a High School history class, so quite where the idea behind this statement comes from other than the violent onset of advanced senility is beyond me.
Maybe it's my certain kind of madness, but I'm pretty sure from every history and World War II textbook I've ever studied, every book I've ever read and every documentary or war film I've ever seen, Nazi Germany didn't exactly buddy up to the Jews in the way you'd expect from a culture allegedly dominated by them. Maybe the Jews and the Homosexuals had a big falling out over the material the flags should be made from or how big and shiny the golden eagles should be and everything went downhill from there, but I can tell you, I have my doubts.
#3 Crazy Old Bastard idea: Argue with Me and the Amish Get It.
Do you remember the horrific news this time last year about the shooting in an Amish shool of five girls in Pennsylvania? Well, You'd think the Amish would go down a storm with Phelps what with their pious dedication to the faith, but apparently they aren't immune from God's petty wrath either. Think Charles Carl Roberts performed that awful act because he was an insane gun-toting maniac? Freddie says you're wrong. God made him do it, you see, because the governor of Pennsylvania didn't like Freddie and his friends in the WBC.
Governor Ed Rendell said some nasty things about Freddie's friends and dared to pass a law stopping them from gloating at funerals, so Freddie got down and prayed real hard and God, in his infinite wisdom, decided not to punish Governor Rendell directly, as you would think would be the sensible thing to do, but decided to do His whole 'working in mysterious ways' act by instead killing five Amish girls completely unrelated to Rendell, the Pennsylvania government or any action ever taken against him. If you can see the logic in that, please comment this article, because I'd really enjoy the explanation.
I won't go on, but there's many, many more cases of this. If you're interested, the edited highlights are Gerald Ford being infinitely worse than Saddam Hussein, the bushfires in California earlier this month being God's startlingly inaccurate attempt to kill Arnold Schwarzenegger, and the Governor of Missouri being possessed by demons.
Oh, and so is Louis Theroux.
I'm laughing too much to type anymore, maybe my madness is kicking in.
For all of this and more, I suggest you read this.
Since then, Fred Phelps has become the founder and spiritual leader of what is known as the 'Westboro Baptist Church'. That's the group that have become somewhat infamous for going around America protesting against the military funerals of soldiers killed in the 'War on Terror'. Now, you may or may not agree with the 'War on Terror', but if you agree with Phelps' reasons for protesting, then there are several good psychotherapists I can refer you to. The reason is thus: Fred Phelps believes that the September 11th attacks were God's punishment for America's toleration of homosexuality, and anything that the Americans do other than banning 'fags' (his word, not mine) in reaction to that is bad. Bad enough, evidently, for him to round up his church, pile them all into a coach and come and gloat at grieving families. But that's just a little background. It isn't nearly the craziest thing he's ever said. Take a couple of seconds for your sense of disbelief to pass, then read on.
#1 Crazy Old Bastard idea: God Hates Sweden (dot com)
I'll start off with the most ludicrous. For the last few years, one of the sites that has been run by the Westboro Baptist Church - I'll call them 'the WBC' from now on, because anything else I might care to use would be libel - has been GodHatesSweden dot com (I'm not going to give them the extra traffic by linking to them directly - type it in yourself if you want a good laugh). According to Phelps, God hates the country of blondes, fjords and eating rotten fish for your tea because they tolerate homosexuals, and the reason Swedes died in the 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake was because God sent it to destroy them for their tolerance of their spandex-clad bretheren. The facts that it was peak holiday season in place popular with Nordic countries, or that if God hated Sweden he could quite easily cut out the middle man and hit Sweden instead of a far flung ocean on the other side of the world where a few Swedes happened to be sunbathing, seemed lost on him. The reasons why are, in turn, lost on me.
#2 Crazy Old Bastard idea: Who Ruled Nazi Germany?
I'll give you a clue: He doesn't think it was the Nazis.
Moving on to what would probably be the most offensive were it not the most patently stupid, during a speech against John Kerry and Wesley Clark in which he also claimed all Jews "hate God" and were "smitten with madness" (but, as offensive as that is, it isn't nearly mad enough for this post), claimed that - and this is a direct quote - "Homosexuals and Jews dominated Nazi Germany". Now I don't know if Mr. Phelps has ever picked up a history book, but I'm pretty sure that at one point or another on his way to getting his law degree he must have passed a High School history class, so quite where the idea behind this statement comes from other than the violent onset of advanced senility is beyond me.
Maybe it's my certain kind of madness, but I'm pretty sure from every history and World War II textbook I've ever studied, every book I've ever read and every documentary or war film I've ever seen, Nazi Germany didn't exactly buddy up to the Jews in the way you'd expect from a culture allegedly dominated by them. Maybe the Jews and the Homosexuals had a big falling out over the material the flags should be made from or how big and shiny the golden eagles should be and everything went downhill from there, but I can tell you, I have my doubts.
#3 Crazy Old Bastard idea: Argue with Me and the Amish Get It.
Do you remember the horrific news this time last year about the shooting in an Amish shool of five girls in Pennsylvania? Well, You'd think the Amish would go down a storm with Phelps what with their pious dedication to the faith, but apparently they aren't immune from God's petty wrath either. Think Charles Carl Roberts performed that awful act because he was an insane gun-toting maniac? Freddie says you're wrong. God made him do it, you see, because the governor of Pennsylvania didn't like Freddie and his friends in the WBC.
Governor Ed Rendell said some nasty things about Freddie's friends and dared to pass a law stopping them from gloating at funerals, so Freddie got down and prayed real hard and God, in his infinite wisdom, decided not to punish Governor Rendell directly, as you would think would be the sensible thing to do, but decided to do His whole 'working in mysterious ways' act by instead killing five Amish girls completely unrelated to Rendell, the Pennsylvania government or any action ever taken against him. If you can see the logic in that, please comment this article, because I'd really enjoy the explanation.
I won't go on, but there's many, many more cases of this. If you're interested, the edited highlights are Gerald Ford being infinitely worse than Saddam Hussein, the bushfires in California earlier this month being God's startlingly inaccurate attempt to kill Arnold Schwarzenegger, and the Governor of Missouri being possessed by demons.
Oh, and so is Louis Theroux.
I'm laughing too much to type anymore, maybe my madness is kicking in.
For all of this and more, I suggest you read this.
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