Westboro Baptist Church founder Fred Phelps dies

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Source : Westboro Baptist Church founder Fred Phelps dies - chicagotribune.com

Tribune wire reports1:15 p.m. CDT, March 20, 2014

Fred Phelps, the pastor who led a small Kansas church's vitriolic "God Hates Fags" anti-gay campaign at public events across the United States, including military funerals, has died, the church said Thursday.

Phelps, whose Westboro Baptist Church in Topeka, Kansas, won a 2011 freedom-of-speech U.S. Supreme Court decision related to their anti-gay picketing, died late Wednesday in a Kansas hospice. He was 84.

Phelps founded the church in the 1950s.

In his later years, Phelps, known as "Gramps" to his family, turned over much of the church's day-to-day operations to his offspring.

In March, his son Nathan, who ran away from home as soon as he turned 18 and later became a gay rights advocate, said in a Facebook posting he had learned Phelps was near death in a hospice and that he had been excommunicated in 2013. The church would not confirm the excommunication report, saying membership issues were "private."

Phelps' church was widely denounced as a hate group and was not part of any mainstream Baptist organization. Its membership has been estimated at about 100, many of whom were related to Phelps.

By Phelps' reasoning, cancer, the September 11, 2001, attacks on the United States, school shootings and the deaths of soldiers in Afghanistan and Iraq, as well as other tragedies and disasters involving Americans, were God's retribution for a lax attitude toward what he called "the modern militant homosexual movement."

"God Hates Fags" was the overriding slogan for Phelps and his followers, as well as the name of their primary website. They carried that message to protests, brandishing signs declaring "Thank God For AIDS," "America Is Doomed," "Thank God For Dead Soldiers" and "God Blew Up The Troops."
"Look, you can't preach the Bible without preaching the hatred of God," Phelps said in a 2010Huffington Post interview.

The news of his death was met with an outpouring of comments on social media, including many who said Phelps' teachings inadvertently served to promote tolerance of the gay and lesbian community.

"I'd like to thank Fred Phelps today, for accidentally inspiring me and countless others like me to fight for tolerance and against hate," Russell Hainline, a screenwriter in Los Angeles, tweeted.

Reuters
Copyright © 2014, Reuters


Thoughts?
 
I wonder if the GLBT community is planning to picket his funeral? :werd:
 
I wonder if the GLBT community is planning to picket his funeral? :werd:

:lol:

I just don't like the comments that the church made. God and Jesus never hate Gays. I don't see that in the Bible, anyway. We are just human. No body is perfect. Sorry that he passed away because of cancer. Oh, I hate cancer. I am glad his son support as a Gay advocate. Good for him. :thumb:
 
Read about that the other day....welllll....:cool2:

Sunday Worship at Westboro Baptist Church and dress nicely.

After that, go to Mexican's restaurant and you get 10% off for being in church group. :lol:
 
That reminds me that the preist here gets angry when my beat friend goes to church. He was totally fine with it until my friend said he was gay
 
Good!

I hope the families and supporters of dead military soldiers will join gays and their supporters to picket at his funeral.
 
I've seen my newsfeed on facebook being bombarded with this and many are celebrating his death. It is too weird to be celebrating one's death.
 
Just sad how much hate this group had. Picketing at military funerals was way over the top.
 
Just sad how much hate this group had. Picketing at military funerals was way over the top.

I forgot about funeral of shooting victims until someone mentioned it on Facebook.

Yeah picketing at the funeral of these victims was way way way over the top.
 
I don't think WBC ever got to picket those funerals of Sandy Hook like they wanted to. I'm not sorry this guy passed away. The hate this guy spread was ridiculous.
 
I don't think WBC ever got to picket those funerals of Sandy Hook like they wanted to. I'm not sorry this guy passed away. The hate this guy spread was ridiculous.

IIRC they did picket there.
 
westboro.jpg



The First Westboro Baptist Counterprotest of the Post-Phelps Era - Hit & Run : Reason.com
 
Good!

I hope the families and supporters of dead military soldiers will join gays and their supporters to picket at his funeral.

That would be only fair, but I doubt military families being the kind of people they are, wouldn't lower themselves to his level.

Laura
 
Good!

I hope the families and supporters of dead military soldiers will join gays and their supporters to picket at his funeral.

I don't see them lowering themselves to the standards of the Westboro Church...
 
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