Westboro Baptist Protesters Get Tires Slashed Following Protest Saturday
To top it off, police say that they were unable to find anyone in town who would repair their vehicle
McALESTER - Members of a Kansas church that protests at military funerals may have found themselves in the wrong town Saturday.
Shortly after finishing their protest at the funeral of Army Sgt. Jason James McCluskey of McAlester, a half-dozen protesters from Westboro Baptist Church in Topeka, Kan., headed to their minivan, only to discover that its front and rear passenger-side tires had been slashed.
To make matters worse, as their minivan slowly hobbled away on two flat tires, with a McAlester police car following behind, the protesters were unable to find anyone in town who would repair their vehicle, according to police.
The minivan finally pulled over several blocks away in a shopping center parking lot, where AAA was called. A flatbed service truck arrived and loaded up the minivan. Assistant Police Chief Darrell Miller said the minivan was taken to Walmart for repairs.
Even before the protesters discovered their damaged tires, they faced off with a massive crowd of jeering and taunting counterprotesters at Third Street and Washington Avenue, two blocks from the First Baptist Church, where the soldier's funeral was held
They've been kinda lucky so far. I'm surprised such things don't happen more often, what with them screaming stuff like "HE'S GOING TO HELL AND HE'S A FAG" at military funerals, which one would expect would usually have a fair number of agressive young men trained for combat...
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And there's really nothing they can do about it, no one they can sue this time. "Owner has right to refuse service", and looks like the owners exercised their rights.
They might try to get onto the police to find the tire slashers, but even at the best of times trying to find the vandals is impossible without eye-witnesses. Since everyone else was focused on the protest and counter-protest, no eye-witnesses. Too bad, so sad.
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PeZook wrote:They've been kinda lucky so far. I'm surprised such things don't happen more often, what with them screaming stuff like "HE'S GOING TO HELL AND HE'S A FAG" at military funerals, which one would expect would usually have a fair number of agressive young men trained for combat...
They have had things thrown at them before. In Louis Thereoux ? sp documentary "The most hated family in America" (available on youtube) someone threw something and it hit one of their kids.
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PeZook wrote:with them screaming stuff like "HE'S GOING TO HELL AND HE'S A FAG" at military funerals
What reason they give themselves to do it? Or do they insult dead people just for fun?
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They only way things could get better would be if someone took our a restraining order against them that kept them at least 5 miles away at all time, and they violated in an attempt to protest.
The lawsuit from that would be wonderful.
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PeZook wrote:with them screaming stuff like "HE'S GOING TO HELL AND HE'S A FAG" at military funerals
What reason they give themselves to do it? Or do they insult dead people just for fun?
They have turned up to thousands of funerals over the years. People grieving a lost relative are told that because, basically, all gays are evil and are not terminated, god has squashed their lost loved ones.
An organised response is emerging - often large groups of tattooed, flag waving Harley riders turn up and interpose themselves between Phelps and his ilk and the funeral.
They only way things could get better would be if someone took our a restraining order against them that kept them at least 5 miles away at all time, and they violated in an attempt to protest.
The lawsuit from that would be wonderful.
Not going to happen. Phelps is a complete asshole, but he's also quite legally adept. He very carefully arranges the protests so that 1) His side is doing nothing illegal, no matter how much they brush the line, and 2) They can effectively sue the fuck out of any retaliation. It's one of their sources of income, effectively.
In this case, however... heh. Someone managed to find a way to hit them where it hurt: Anonymous vandalism that's next to impossible to track down (even if people devoted serious effort to it, which I doubt is going to happen in this case), coupled with people exercising their entirely legal right not to give the Phelps clan the time of day. If this became a trend, I wouldn't be surprised to see the Phelps' protests start to quickly dry up. The vandalism would create a nasty money sink, and they can't find any targets to sue for it.
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Really, what can the police do? If they can't find the jackholes that tagged my truck night before mischief night last year, or the ones who keyed my fucking truck and my aunt's van,o or the jackhole that put a knife through my aunt's tire - and this being a relatively small town with no exceptional activity going on and a potential list of 'usual suspects,' there's no way in hell that anybody's going to face so much as a fine for this.
And really, what's the worst they could do? It's petty vandalism - just how far would they get sueing someone for that? The damages to the tires on their minivan? That's what, $400 or so?
If it starts happening again and again, they'll probably start posting guards on their cars, but still, this brightened my morning a bit.
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Way to overwork a metaphor Shadow. I feel really creeped out now.
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Everyone, I've said this several times before: Fred Phelps is now a decrepit and senile old man and doesn't have much if anything to do anymore with the actual runnings of the cult he founded and is little more than a figurehead now. He's barely been seen or heard of for the last several years. His daughter Shirley Phelps-Roper is the de facto (if maybe not official) head of the church now. Exact same tactics and everything else since she is also a lawyer (her father did make all of his many children become lawyers for exactly this reason) but the old hateful geezer doesn't do anything anymore so I prefer to let him rot in his own decay and not give him the attention he might still have the capacity to crave.
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Mayabird wrote:the old hateful geezer doesn't do anything anymore so I prefer to let him rot in his own decay and not give him the attention he might still have the capacity to crave.
That's exactly what he's doing, and he completely deserves all the things people say about him. Does the monster really need to be defended here?
I am not defending him, dumbass. I am pointing out that he doesn't do anything anymore. However, using his name gives Shirley Phelps-Roper legitimacy via a cover. She is the one people should be going after if they want something done now. She should be the focus and target since she runs the place now, organizes all their attention whoring, stalks her brothers who escaped from the cult to harass them at every turn, trolls the internet to post several page screeds with Bible verses, etc etc. Fred is just a debarred drooling geezer in a chair (though he'd probably still be yelling stuff about gays burning in hell even after he'd forgotten all his children). I have no idea where their church stands on the whole "men should rule and women should STFU" thing that Baptists have, but it could possibly take her power base down and there are no other heir apparents in the wings.
And maybe it'll give the old guy a heart attack if people stop talking about him and only talk about Shirley.
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SDNW4 Nation: The Refuge And, on Nova Terra, Al-Stan the Totally and Completely Honest and Legitimate Weapons Dealer and Used Starship Salesman slept on a bed made of money, with a blaster under his pillow and his sombrero pulled over his face. This is to say, he slept very well indeed.
JBG wrote:They have turned up to thousands of funerals over the years. People grieving a lost relative are told that because, basically, all gays are evil and are not terminated, god has squashed their lost loved ones.
Thanks for the answer.
And money from sues seems to be the main reason to do this ludicrous actions (for the bosses of it anyway).
An organised response is emerging - often large groups of tattooed, flag waving Harley riders turn up and interpose themselves between Phelps and his ilk and the funeral.
Hahah I would like to see people dressed like Village People do something along the same line too.
I'm nobody. Nobody at all. But the secrets of the universe don't mind. They reveal themselves to nobodies who care. -- Stereotypical spacecraft are pressurized. Less realistic spacecraft are pressurized to hold breathing atmosphere. Realistic spacecraft are pressurized because they are flying propellant tanks. -Isaac Kuo -- Good art has function as well as form. I hesitate to spend more than $50 on decorations of any kind unless they can be used to pummel an intruder into submission. -Sriad
I really, honestly hope that they catch the tire-slashers. Vandalism is a crime, no matter how much of a dick your target is. Vandalism. Crime. No questions.
As far as the locals' refusal to help him out - well, I really can't blame them. It is Fred "Lord High King of All Assholes" Phelps, after all.
Honestly these chuckleheads (the phelpsites) probably help the cause of secularism more than anything. They showcase the absurdity of religion taken to it's logical conclusions and give common ground for people who might otherwise be on opposite sides of that argument.
As for the tire slashing, well it's not particularly smart (it really just helps fuel their persecution complex), it's definitely illegal and it probably won't do much good, though I can sympathize with the sentiment behind it. The locals all refusing to render service is pretty cool though. Protip: if you go someplace and rant and rave about how a local who died serving in the military was a 'fag' and how he's now 'burning in hell' you're probably not going to be making many friends and the locals probably aren't going to be terribly inclined to help out if you run into trouble.
darthdavid wrote:Honestly these chuckleheads (the phelpsites) probably help the cause of secularism more than anything. They showcase the absurdity of religion taken to it's logical conclusions and give common ground for people who might otherwise be on opposite sides of that argument.
Not really. Plenty of people only look at the protesting military funerals aspect and then proudly declare them to be "hippie libtards."
darthdavid wrote:Honestly these chuckleheads (the phelpsites) probably help the cause of secularism more than anything. They showcase the absurdity of religion taken to it's logical conclusions and give common ground for people who might otherwise be on opposite sides of that argument.
Not really. Plenty of people only look at the protesting military funerals aspect and then proudly declare them to be "hippie libtards."
Well anyone that deluded probably wasn't going to be reached by sanity any time soon anyway, but they are good for making points to the slightly more reasonable.
Topeka, KS, United States (AHN) - Members of the controversial Westboro Baptist Church in Kansas have turned their gospel of hate against Oklahoma children after tires on their van were slashed during a visit there to protest a military funeral.
Although it is not known who slashed their tires, Westboro Baptist Church members have decided to focus their revenge for the incident by announcing plans to now begin picketing the funerals of Oklahoma children.
The Westboro Baptist Church website claims that "God hates Oklahoma" because the state corrupts its children from birth. It then draws a correlation between that claim and the recent death of an Oklahoma soldier.
Westboro Baptist Church members travel to other states to picket the funerals of soldiers and other events. The group was in Dearborn, MI, Friday morning to picket the Muslim Center of America. They left after about a half-hour to travel to Wayne State University to protest a Jewish group there. They also are known for expressing anti-Catholic and anti-gay sentiments.
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No, these people now think that they are doing them a a favour. In fact, if this ever occurred to them, they probably are ready for it because any harm made will end up in a lawsuit that they plan to win.
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