Good As You

Thank you so much for this. The first and most in-depth look at Westboro that I've seen. Telling, that it comes from the BBC and not an American TV network.

This is what religionists (of any of the "Great" religions) are, stripped of the hypocrisies of "love" and "compassion" and "hope": historically and factually ignorant, fearful, paranoid, vicious, sociopathic death-worshipping cults.

The only difference between the worshippers at Westboro and the current "faith-based" leaders attempting to overtake every facet of American government and life is that the people of Westboro are honest about their true beliefs and goals.

O.M.G. Being born and raised here in lovely Topeka, you get used to Fred and his group of inbred idiots. Once again I want to appoligize for Fred. He is one of the very tiny percentage of people around here who feel this way. The majority are either supportive or just don't care one way or the other. We can only hope when Fred is in the ground it falls apart, but they are probably brainwashed enough that it will continue.

The people of the Westboro church are simply more extreme versions of what America has become. Fox News, George Bush and many of the centers of power in America have created a world of fear and hatred to evolve their power base. We entered into a war against a country that had not raised a hand to us. 600,000 dead, and we continue to borrow against an empty treasury and commit the lives of our citizens to the effort that only creates more death.

We have a country that locks up more of it's citizens then any country in the world. Those that come out of that system are then set up to find themselves back in it. We have industries that pollute and exploit other people and places around the world so that we might have cheap goods from our local Wal-Mart. We all contribute to the hate in this world, because we point at the Westboro people and call them hate... and yet we support hate in our own ways every day.

Good made interview. Yes, that is a very samll group of people spreading there HATE! As you can see it is a learned thing as for the little boy who was picketing and didn't know why! Thank god for the ones who left the cult and went on to a better life! This is the most degrading church ANYWHERE! What a shame to even call it a church! The bible states : Don't judge others. The apple in this case didn't even fall off the tree, let alone fall on the ground by the tree. A very dispecable type of people. Talk about lost souls! There you go!

I tried. I just couldn't bring myself to click ... just way too much pain associated with all the christian thing.

I feel most sorry for the kids. They are being raised by sub-human idiots. They will have nothing to show for it when they are older. They will not be accepted by any part of America except for other sub-human idiots who share the same crazy beliefs. They never were given the choice to be brainwashed.

these people make me sick
im bi and i think its sick how they cant come to terms
that some people are happy with same sex relationships,
they just have their heads up their asses tbh!

Holy smokes-- WHO is bankrolling this "church"? These folks are rank amateurs at making a living of hate mongering when compared to Rupert Murdoch and Faux Snooze. When most of America's working class is in tremendous debt and working more than one job to barely make ends meet above the poverty line, where do these people get the leisure time, access and money to go to law school, and the money to fly around the country at $200,000 a pop to picket the funerals of KIA military while they enjoy well-enough appointed gated-community living of sorts and produce teleprompted sermons broadcast by their apparently reclusive patriach?

Holy smokes-- WHO is bankrolling this "church"? These folks are rank amateurs at making a living of hate mongering when compared to Rupert Murdoch and Faux Snooze. When most of America's working class is in tremendous debt and working more than one job to barely make ends meet above the poverty line, where do these people get the leisure time, access and money to go to law school, and the money to fly around the country at $200,000 a pop to picket the funerals of KIA military while they enjoy well-enough appointed gated-community living of sorts and produce teleprompted sermons broadcast by their apparently reclusive patriach?

I read a lot of misinformed comments above. That is, its easy to some how think that America is being taken over by religious zealots because that is the popular view. I beg to differ. If America were being taken over by Christian people or religious zealots, as some put it, then we would never see the erosion of moral values, the de valuation of life, the corruption and acceptance of it in public life...the list is endless...I would say far from being taken over by religious people, we are being fully overrun by the forces of secularism and have blurred the lines of accepatable behavior. Now we can do anything we want without any accountibility. The problem with this is that everything we do here, as much as we think we are doing it in the privacy of our homes or backyards, has global significance..America is no longer a community that can be protected by vast oceans and borders...America is the world and so goes America, so goes the world...that is why its so important for us as a nation to try to remember and cherish the values of our forefathers and study what kind of people they were and what there intentions were in founding this nation.

Now to my real point...Phelps and the Westport group, at the heart of all their biblical rhetoric and hate speech, are really people who simply and honestly want to stay pure. They do not want to fall anymore and do not want their children to fall. They, like so many others these days, find it hard to simply promote what they believe, and find it much easier to be against something or use something else to make their case...yes they are honest, but not in the way presented by many of the writers on this blog...they are honest in that they want to live in a world of purity, fidelity and true respect for others...this is what makes them so strange...because in our world, the world of selfish extremism, we cannot find such people...I do not say more power to them because I think they do speak hate, but we should study them and other groups and go further into the reasons why such groups exist in the first place.

Wow, Frank. Just...wow.

Fanatics, that’s all they are is people standing way over to one side and can’t see the big picture. There are defiantly fanatics on both sides of their main issue of gays but nothing good ever comes out of fanaticism but endless fights and misunderstanding. I really could care less on what they believe but they should learn to keep it to themselves.

Well, I am so surprised by life...I watched fred the movie at the following site http://www.fredthemovie.com/clips.html
and have to revise my comments about Pastor Phelps being a hate monger. Its better to understand what he is saying and why than to label him a hate monger and thus miss the message and purpose for what he is saying. Please listen to his story and try to understand where he is coming from.

Mr LaGrotteria (Frank): I couldn't figure our where your defense of Phelps was coming from. That is until I realized you are a director at Reverend Sun Myung Moon's Universal Peace Federation (UPF) [formerly the Interreligious and International Federation for World Peace (IIFWP)]. For those not familiar with Rev. Moon's extreme anti-gay teachings:

http://www.glaa.org/archive/2001/glaaonmoon0427.shtml

Oh, and he's also said things like this:

"Jewish people, you have to repent. Jesus was the King of Israel. Through the principle of indemnity Hitler killed 6 million Jews. That is why. God could not prevent Satan from doing that because Israel killed the True Parents. Even now, you have to determine that you will repent and follow and become one with Christianity through Rev. Moon."
http://www.unification.net/news/2003/news20030302_1.html

What a pig Phelps is. PIG"

Fred Phelps is a homosexual, just as Ted Haggard is. This is his way of compensating for his guilt. Any of the "reverends" who speak so vociferously against all things sexual are wrestling with their own sexual pathologies.
Phelps daughter and the mother of eleven children, who has imbued her children with a fear of intimacy, is herself the quintessential poster child for having been the victim of child abuse, perhaps at the hands of her own father.

The people from Westboro are good at self actuallizing vicariously through thier own actions. It runs in a continuous feedback cycle whereby their own unfounded thoughts about the world are fulfilled by pissing the people around them off

It is my understanding that you claim to be bible believing Christians, is that true? If so then believe every word of the bible and not just those parts that are pleasing to you, correct? Clearly homosexuality is an abomination to God in his word, the bible but:

Does it not say in 1st John 2:9-11; that he who dislikes his fellow man is living in darkness and he who loves is living in light!

Again Titus 3:1-2; speaks of obeying the government and not speaking evil of anyone!

Also Galatians 5:18-24; speaks about hatred, fighting and feeling that everyone else is wrong except those in your own little group would disqualify you from inheriting the kingdom of God but when the Holy spirit controls our lives, he will produce his good fruit (I am sure you know the fruits of the spirit).

Also Romans 15:10; says, we have no right to criticize our brother or look down on him but rather each of us would personally stand before the judgment seat of God.

Also James 4:12 states Only he who made the law can rightly judge and he alone decides to save or destroy us, so we have no right to judge or criticize others.

If you truly believe that Jesus died for your sins and feel what you are doing is right and in line with Gods will, then please allow me to pray for you because your hatred has blinded you and made you unable to see that you are living in darkness brothers and in Jesus name, I bind satan from your lives, hearts and minds.

I will be praying for truth in your lives and that this darkness that consumes you be lifted and clarity given so you can see the evil in your actions!

Kirk: Are you speaking to this website or to Westboro Baptist Church?

Does any one know if they are actually part of the offical Baptist Church? Who appointed him a Reverand?

No church in the U.S. accepts that WBC (they've been listed as a "hate group" by the "Southern Poverty Law Center").

Rev. Phelps was ordained (when he was 17 years old!) by B.H. McAlister, a Southern Baptist minister.

Wikipedia has articles on the WBC and Fred Phelps. There is a lot of information out there about these people that will give you a lot of insight into how and why the WBC exists and functions the way it does.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fred_Phelps

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Westboro_Baptist_Church

Kat: We cover WBC extensively on this site. For most of our readers, they are as familiar as oxygen.