Fred Phelps Is Dying

[General Mung Beans]

https://twitter.com/n8phelps/status/445052320317833216

Fred Phelps appears to be dying, at least according to this tweet by his estranged son. If there's anything more substantial, I'll post it as soon as it comes up.

[White Haven]

This summarizes my feelings on the matter quite handily. There are some people the world is very much better off without, and this piece of trash is one of them. I'm not a murderer, so I'd not do the deed myself, but I'm not about to shed a single tear whenever it finally happens.

[Gandalf]

Well that's a positive.

I wonder how the media would remember him once he goes. Would he get the post death PR makeover of so many other?

[FaxModem1]

Question, how much media attention would be given when he dies, and how counter intuitive would that be, as the whole point of Westboro Baptist Church is making money through being trolls.

As a sidenote, how many people will protest his funeral?

[Grumman]

As a sidenote, how many people will protest his funeral?

Why would you protest? That would be a cause for celebration!

[FaxModem1]

Poetic justice and irony?

[DaveJB]

I doubt that Phelps' death is really going to make a huge difference to how the church operates day-to-day. From Louis Theroux's documentaries it seemed that Shirley Phelps-Roper and Steve Drain are the ones really running the show at the WBC, with Fred just being someone who served as the public face of their operation, and got wheeled out once a week to rant about how you're gonna eat your babies.

[loomer]

I make a general policy not to celebrate the death of any human being, and Phelps will be no exception.

[Wicked Pilot]

Question, how much media attention would be given when he dies, and how counter intuitive would that be, as the whole point of Westboro Baptist Church is making money through being trolls.

Better question, assuming they bury him, will they let it known to the public where?

As a sidenote, how many people will protest his funeral?

Second sidenote, how many people will relieve themselves on his grave?

[Crown]

Would have loved Hitch to still be alive so he could go on air and do to Phelps what he did to Falwell; "If you gave Falwell an enema he could have been buried in a matchbox."

[Mr Bean]

You all are looking at this the wrong way. The best way to honor Fred Phelps life and all he stood for is to hold a giant block party the day of his funeral and if the Kansas legislate could see it to legalese gay marriage before Mr Phelps death I'm sure he'd be honored to have his grave serve at witness to oh lets say about fifty gay marriages.

[Wicked Pilot]

Ooh, even better than pissing on his grave, people should get gay married on his grave during the day.

At night you ask, well that's when they use it for the gay naughty...

[Ralin]

He and his family has to have considered this and planned on cremation or something, right? They have a lot of practice at being hated, they can't not expect it.

Then again, using his grave as a honey pot to give them people to sue would be in-character for them...

[General Mung Beans]

He and his family has to have considered this and planned on cremation or something, right? They have a lot of practice at being hated, they can't not expect it.

Then again, using his grave as a honey pot to give them people to sue would be in-character for them...

Some conservative Evangelicals/fundamentalists are opposed to cremation (then again there are those who aren't).

[Mr. Coffee]

I think if they did cremate him it'd be pretty nifty if someone were to nick the ashes. Then find a nice turkish bathhouse or something that's to be built and mix Fred's ashes with the concrete used to pour the foundation. I think that secretly Fred would want that.

[General Zod]

Poetic justice and irony?

Poetic justice would be having a gay marriage ceremony during his funeral.

[Elheru Aran]

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/03/1 ... _hp_ref=tw

Last minute change of heart, it appears?

[Borgholio]

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/03/1 ... _hp_ref=tw

Last minute change of heart, it appears?

I knew it had to be something like that. Why else would the boot out one of their most rabid hate-filled members?

[Shinn Langley Soryu]

If Fred Phelps is dying, is it right to cheer? Some people apparently don't think so:

As news spread over the weekend that Fred Phelps Sr., the notorious founder of Westboro Baptist Church, was dying in a Kansas hospice, corners of the Internet erupted in cheers.

On Facebook, a "Fred Phelps Death Watch" group formed and gained hundreds of members, while other groups attracted followers by planning pickets of his funeral -- in imitation of those of the funerals of gays and lesbians and military servicemen and women that have brought the church its notoriety. On Twitter, variations of "yay," "thank God" and "cannot wait," were among the phrases commonly associated with the 84-year-old minister as people excitedly discussed the church leader's condition, which is being described as "on the edge of death."

Should the impending death of a man who has become an icon of hate be celebrated? Some Americans, including those whom Westboro has targeted, are using the moment to reflect on what it means to take joy in the demise of another human.

"When we protest against the Phelps family, we are always protesting for love. Here is a family that is so in desperate need of grace and love because they obviously haven't experienced it," said Azariah Southworth, a gay Las Vegas blogger who ran into Westboro protesters in Long Beach, Calif., during a 2010 speaking tour with Ray Boltz, a gay Christian singer. "So many of us want to deny love to them the same way they denied love to us," said Southworth, whose partner is in the military. Southworth penned a post on his blog Sunday titled, "Fred Phelps, you are loved."

"But to love someone doesn't recognize that we ignore that they committed great evils in their lives," he added.

It's no news that Phelps is widely disliked among a wide swath of Americans. The small, family-centric church he founded in 1955 has been condemned by hundreds, if not thousands, of religious and civic leaders. It's so extreme in its views on the LGBT community -- as well as natural disaster victims, those in the military, the American government and Jews, among other targets -- that it's often described not as a church, but as a cult-like hate group.

That history is not reason enough to be happy about his death, says Jeffrey Seglin, a lecturer in public policy at the Harvard Kennedy School who writes "The Right Thing," a syndicated weekly ethics column.

"[Westboro Baptist] celebrates when others whose lifestyles they disapprove of die ... That's part of what's viewed as loathsome. How is celebrating Phelps' death not the same sort of behavior that his detractors find contemptible?" he asked.

Phelps' near-death condition, which has been denied by church leadership, was first reported on Facebook in post by his son Nathan Phelps, an ex-church member. Another estranged son, Mark Phelps, later confirmed the news to the Topeka Capital-Journal. In a statement on its website, church leaders said news of Fred Phelps' condition was "highly speculative," but said he is under hospice care and has "health issues." The church also would not confirm that it had excommunicated Phelps in August -- an assertion that Nathan Phelps, who did not reply to an interview request from The Huffington Post, and Mark Phelps have both made.

Whether Phelps dies in the coming days or years, the question of how the country responds remains.

One former church member, Lauren Drain, who left Westboro in 2008, is making a plea on behalf of its founder. In a statement, Drain said she was "devastated" and prayed "that despite all the many families and people affected by the WBC, that they will not have vengeance ... but rather pity."

And for those like Fr. Thomas Sheehan, a Jesuit chaplain at UMass Memorial Medical Center in Worcester, Mass., who has closely been watching the church's activities for many years, it will be a chance to show "light to dispel the darkness."

"Retaliation in kind continues to wreak havoc all over the world, on both the individual and group level ... I believe that even among the unchurched who were offended and abused by Phelps' anti-gay hate speech, there is a solid philosophical basis for following a more merciful approach -- that of love," said Sheehan, who frequently ministers to dying patients and their families. "'Do unto others what you would have them do unto you' fits into love's structure: it's virtue."

As for the subject of a funeral, turns out there may not even be one at all:

Westboro Baptist Church is famous for its funeral pickets, and now that its founder, Fred Phelps, is on his deathbed, some people have raised the possibility of protesting his funeral. Others urge taking the high road.

However, it seems that there may not be a funeral at all, according to WBC member Margie Phelps, who told Huffington Post editor Nick Wing in February that memorials were not in line with their church policy.

@nickpwing We don't worship the dead in this church, so there'd be no public memorial or funeral to picket if any member died.
— GodHatesYourStars (@WBCMargie) February 4, 2014

Phelps' estranged son, Nathan, wrote in a Facebook post that his father had been excommunicated from WBC, and was "on the edge of death at Midland Hospice house in Topeka, Kansas."

WBC directed media inquiries to an FAQ page about Phelps that was vague about his current status. In response to the question, "Has Fred Phelps been ‘excluded’ from membership at Westboro Baptist Church?" they wrote, "Membership issues are private."

WBC says it will continue its activities without change regardless of Phelps' condition.

[TithonusSyndrome]

I wouldn't miss him if he passed on, but I'd miss the smug jibes at his expense even less. Tasteless as his antics were, he was ultimately small potatoes compared to the true ills that went on in the world without even a fraction of the public backlash that his organization faced, and it was hard to not come away groaning at the possibility that people just liked wailing on him because he posed a simplistic and straightforward moral quandary for them to engage in and feel good about themselves for castigating endlessly. Bikers or veterans formed a line to protect some funeral from a picketing that, towards the end, didn't even scrape together the money for the trip there? Super. Where were these same people when Occupy were getting pepper sprayed at UCLA? Was even the subtlest hint of moral nuance, even one fabricated by the media, too intimidating for them to engage?

[Metahive]

May his death be quick and his legacy be soon forgotten.

[mr friendly guy]

TYT did a short piece on him.

Apparently in his younger days Phelps seemed reasonably progressive. That is he was secular (albeit maybe excessive in his interpretation)* and defended African Americans in the civil rights era. What the hell went wrong?

* he protested against Reagan's having an ambassador to the Vatican, which is a weak argument as the Vatican is also a state as well as a church.

[Metahive]

I've read the same thing about his younger days, but also that he was a massive racist back then as well. I guess that was just his way of trolling people back in the day.

[Ralin]

I've read the same thing about his younger days, but also that he was a massive racist back then as well. I guess that was just his way of trolling people back in the day.

I've heard much the same. Apparently he would drive up to random people, have his family roll down the windows and they'd all shout "WE LOVE NIGGERS!" and then drive off.

He is supposed to have taken on some legit civil rights cases back in the day, but he screwed his clients over afterward when it came to the settlement money. Don't know the details on that one.

[Zaune]

I'm not going to miss him either, but I've got no stomach for jumping up and down cheering about it. It's in bad taste no matter how much he deserved it.