God Hates You

earthtogod has an amusing post up about the inimitable Fred Phelps and his Westboro Baptist Church. Of course, it is pretty hard not be amusing when talking about Phelps. The man is just plain nuts, in a hateful yet godly way.

Apparently dispatched by Phelps to do god's work, a group of godly hate monkeys arrived in Baltimore to protest the showing of the play, The Laramie Project, by Moisés Kaufman. The play is a documentary that gives voice to a number of residents of Laramie, Wyoming. Kaufman conducted more than 200 interviews and the play is based upon the personal outlooks regarding the death of Mathew Sheppard and larger societal issues, which that lynching brought into sharp relief. As Techtonic Theatre Project says,

The Laramie Project chronicles the life of the town of Laramie in the year after the murder, using eight actors to embody more than sixty different people in their own words - from rural ranchers to university professors. The result is a complex portrayal that dispels the simplistic media stereotypes and explores the depths to which humanity can sink and the heights of compassion of which we are capable.

Sounds compelling to me. Fred Phelps and his ministry of dirty thoughts have, of course, quite a different take on tolerance and understanding. I can easily imagine Westboro members cheering on Sheppard's lynch mob, if not actively participating. Whoa! That's harsh, you might be saying. It is not nearly as harsh as Phelps himself.

Remember, this is the same church that celebrated the deaths of 5,000 Swedes in the tsunami because Sweden has tolerant laws that do not discrimminate against same-sex couples. Phelps has also claimed to be plotting the assissination of the King of Sweden because of this gay couple tolerance. Phelps dispatched followers to a soldier's funeral and displayed signs that read, "GOD HATES YOU." Phelps' position is that soldiers are dying because they are fighting for a government that supports abortion, etc., and therefore deserve to die. Wrap your head around that one.

But I'm also left wondering: what is it that these Phelps freaks do that let's them buggar off from Kansas in the middle of the week to protest a play in Baltimore?