Weasel of the Week: Fred Phelps

The high priest of hate speech has done it again! Fred Phelps, the shepherd of the Westboro Baptist Church, announced plans late Wednesday to hold a protest at the funeral for actress Elizabeth Taylor, perhaps emboldened by a recent Supreme Court ruling that such protests are protected under the First Amendment right to Freedom of Speech.

While it is well known that Ms. Taylor devoted a large amount of money and time to AIDS research and other charitable causes in recent years, Phelps and his haterizing followers see things through the haze of their own skewed vision, villainizing the screen icon for even associating with the gay & lesbian community. In truth, the real villains here are Phelps and his family of ambulance chasing hypocrites (some of his children are, in fact, lawyers), seeking to extend their 15:00 of infamy further by smearing the reputation of a cherished Hollywood legend, piggybacking on the headlines to further their own sick agenda.

But, let us consider this item, which I discovered in reading an item online earlier:

[The WBC is not affiliated with any known Baptist conventions or associations. The church describes itself as following Primitive Baptist and Calvinist principles, though mainstream Primitive Baptists reject the WBC and Phelps.]

And if "mainstream Primitive Baptists", or any other branch of the Baptist Church or any other denomination reject Phelps because of his dark doctrine of disrespect toward his fellow man, can Westboro really be considered a house of worship? The church has been in operation since the 19th century, and, clearly, based on the negative attention it's drawn under Phelps, it's seen better and brighter days. They've maintained an anti-gay agenda for the last 20 years, but have been more in the public eye in the last couple of years by taking their agenda national. No television station will likely ever sell air time to Phelps, in this writer's view. What Phelps needs, however, aside from another set of weasel ears, is to wake up to reality and what the Bible is really all about.