We’re suckers, all of us who are provoked to speak out or take action against Fred Phelps and his hateful message.
Phelps family spokeswoman Shirley Phelps-Roper said as much on a talk radio show before Wednesday’s U.S. Supreme Court decision affirming her family’s constitutional right to act like jerks at military funerals.
Last week, someone disabled several websites belonging to the Phelps family’s Topeka-based Westboro Baptist Church. But instead of getting angry, Phelps-Roper mocked the hackers.
“Listen up, ladies,” she said on the David Pakman Show. “This is what you’ve accomplished. You have caused all the eyes all over the world to look. All we’re doing is publishing a message.
“What you did was cause yet another huge global explosion of the word of God.”
Yep, we’re all being played for suckers, from the Supreme Court on down. Every one who speaks out against the hatred the Phelps family spews. The legislators who pass laws aimed at limiting funeral protests. The attorneys general who defend those laws when challenged in court.
The grieving families who seek legal damages for the harm those protests cause. The news media who cover the controversy.
Even the motorcyclists who shield the families of dead soldiers from seeing the hurtful signs. We’re all being played.
Most hate groups are easily ignored. The Phelpses, on the other hand, are expert at attracting attention. They understand human nature. They know that, in the same way we automatically stomp on a cockroach skittering across the floor, we are quick to react to evil spewed by vermin of their sort.
Back in the 1990s, the Kansas City media got tired of being played. We quit covering Westboro Baptist picketing at the memorial services of gay people.
So Phelps devised more outrageous ways to get noticed beyond his home turf. Hence the protests at military funerals.
He knew the tactic would incite emotional responses. That people would decry the shamefulness of the protests. Pass laws to stop them. File lawsuits in hope of crippling the protesters financially.
All the while, the Phelps family of lawyers laughed. They knew their rights under the Constitution. They knew they’d probably win this Supreme Court case, and they’re confident they’ll overturn some laws setting limits on where and how they can protest.
I bet they will, yet even when they lose, they win by staying in the news.
It’s too late now, I suppose. But what if we followed the lead of sportscasters who refuse to televise the fools who run onto the field during baseball games?
Pretending the Phelpses don’t exist wouldn’t make it so. But denying them the attention they crave most of all would be delicious.
Phelps family spokeswoman Shirley Phelps-Roper said as much on a talk radio show before Wednesday’s U.S. Supreme Court decision affirming her family’s constitutional right to act like jerks at military funerals.
“Listen up, ladies,” she said on the David Pakman Show. “This is what you’ve accomplished. You have caused all the eyes all over the world to look. All we’re doing is publishing a message.
“What you did was cause yet another huge global explosion of the word of God.”
Yep, we’re all being played for suckers, from the Supreme Court on down. Every one who speaks out against the hatred the Phelps family spews. The legislators who pass laws aimed at limiting funeral protests. The attorneys general who defend those laws when challenged in court.
The grieving families who seek legal damages for the harm those protests cause. The news media who cover the controversy.
Even the motorcyclists who shield the families of dead soldiers from seeing the hurtful signs. We’re all being played.
Most hate groups are easily ignored. The Phelpses, on the other hand, are expert at attracting attention. They understand human nature. They know that, in the same way we automatically stomp on a cockroach skittering across the floor, we are quick to react to evil spewed by vermin of their sort.
Back in the 1990s, the Kansas City media got tired of being played. We quit covering Westboro Baptist picketing at the memorial services of gay people.
So Phelps devised more outrageous ways to get noticed beyond his home turf. Hence the protests at military funerals.
He knew the tactic would incite emotional responses. That people would decry the shamefulness of the protests. Pass laws to stop them. File lawsuits in hope of crippling the protesters financially.
All the while, the Phelps family of lawyers laughed. They knew their rights under the Constitution. They knew they’d probably win this Supreme Court case, and they’re confident they’ll overturn some laws setting limits on where and how they can protest.
I bet they will, yet even when they lose, they win by staying in the news.
It’s too late now, I suppose. But what if we followed the lead of sportscasters who refuse to televise the fools who run onto the field during baseball games?
Pretending the Phelpses don’t exist wouldn’t make it so. But denying them the attention they crave most of all would be delicious.
How dare those legal and social commentators, who never miss an opportunity to praise the Jehovah's Witnesses for stretching the boundaries of the First Amendment, now condemn the Westboro Baptists, whose actions in our time are no more outrageous than were the actions of the Jehovah's Witnesses during World War 2.
ReplyDeleteDuring WW2, Jehovah's Witnesses specifically targeted the homes of parents and spouses of wounded and killed soldiers -- knocked on those doors -- and told wives, mothers, and fathers that their husbands and sons had died not only needlessly and pointlessly, but in support of a government which GOD considered His enemy and would soon destroy.
During WW2, Jehovah's Witnesses would show up at War Bond Rallies and spew the same garbage.
1940s Jehovah's Witnesses would park sound trucks across the street from public schools and during recess and blast the school campus with pre-recorded sermons decrying the Pledge of Allegiance. There were also instances of JWs going inside school buildings and passing out anti-Pledge literature to children in the hallways.
JWs also parked sound trucks outside of churches during ongoing services and blasted churches with pre-recorded sermons decrying church teachings.
JWs carried phonographs with pre-recorded sermons door-to-door decrying patriotism, Christianity, etc. During WW2, a WW1 veteran and then Deputy Sheriff ran two JWs out of his gasoline station after they started playing such a recording. One of the JW "pioneers" pulled a pistol and murdered the Deputy.
Post WW2, the WatchTower Society made a point of renting for conventions those facilities which had been named or renamed in honor of the WW2 veterans (Memorial Coliseum, Veterans Stadium, etc. etc.) so as to poke their fingers in the eyes of returning veterans and the cause for which they had fought, been wounded, or died.
1940s Jehovah's Witnesses would specifically target urban Catholic neighborhoods with door-to-door sermons and literature which defamed the Pope and other Catholic hierarchy, Catholic theology, etc.
The JWs of WW2 were the Westboro Baptists of today.
Make up your minds, commentators.
FACT SOUCE:
http://jwemployees.bravehost.com/NewsReports/2031.html