Douche Bag of the Universe

Chances are, by now, you've heard the story. The above pictured asshole, Fred Phelps, and his likely inbreed family headed off to disrupt the funeral service of a US soldier killed in battle. If not, here it is.

My interest isn't in the story isn't the court case or the ruling. though I find myself feeling like the appropriate action by the soldier's father wasn't to sue, but to walk across the street and knock that SOB out. I'm pretty sure no one would blame him and everybody would be on his side. Sometimes self policing is the way to go.

My actual interest in this story is with Mr. Phelps and his "church." You have to put "church" in quotations because really it's nothing more than his brainwashed family members. Their reason for protest is they believe that God hates America because of America's tolerance of homosexuality and thus anything negative that happens to Americans is a direct message from God. They believe that we're all at fault because two dudes or chicks or whatever find each other attractive. I find it hard to believe this guy is actually serious, but, it's obvious he is, so I wanted to take a second to point out a couple of things that jump out at me.

First, the idea that God hates America for being so "tolerant" of homosexuality is pretty ridiculous. Let's take God out of the equation and just look at this idea of America being "tolerant" of homosexuality. I guess we might be splitting hairs here but I'm not so sure that I can give Mr. Phelps the benefit of the doubt on the idea of tolerance. In my humble opinion America is still by and large very anti homosexuality. Why do I think that? Because in order for America to act in a manner the gives homosexuals the same rights as heterosexuals more than six, that's right SIX, states would be performing same sex marriages. Three more states "recognize" but do not perform same sex marriage. So, let's just say that 9 states (DC is included) are leading the way, that's 17.6% of the states believe that people, regardless of sexual orientation, deserve the same rights as everybody else paying taxes. Real F'in progressive! But, I suppose if Mr. Phelps defines "tolerant" as the rest of the population isn't walking around with rifles and blowing gay people's heads off just for breathing, then yeah, I guess I can't argue with him there, America, land of the free and home of the tolerant! The tragedy is that America for the most part is so damn tolerant that we let people like this idiot run around, brain wash his kids and grand kids and their kids and so on, so that this ridiculous line of thinking will continue and this level of un-justifiable hatred will continue.

My other issue with this lunatic is that he calls himself and his family a "church." If you've read enough of the bible it's easy to see that if you pick and chose the parts you want to pay attention to (like every doctrine does) God and Jesus are some pretty spiteful dudes. But, even with that, if you're a church, you're essentially a business, and you're not a business whose success is measured in profits and losses according to dollars and cents (I also realize this isn't entirely true but should be), but in how many people you recruit into your church and thus should be growing your numbers and saving souls for "the good side." As far as I can tell, and I can't prove this, but the church of Fred Phelps only grows when a new family member is born. That should tell you something. If the only people crazy enough to go around and picket the funeral of a dead soldier are your equally crazy relatives, maybe your church isn't exactly on the right path. Maybe you're insane, and you're so insane you can't see it. So insane, that maybe you need to be institutionalized. I also wonder if Mr. Phelps recalls the story of Saul from the bible. For those not in the know, Saul was a guy that went around killing Christians until a big shiny light popped up on the road, blinded him, he got a message from the big guy and suddenly he loved Jesus and Christians and changed his name to way most know him as, Paul. Maybe Mr. Phelps is just playing Saul hoping for a big shinny light? Problem is, that's a story, and he lives in reality, where his protests do nothing to help or promote any cause. Any other business with this kind of growth would have been forced to close shop a long time ago, but somehow, his manages to survive.

My own religious views aside I hope this guy has a moment where he wakes up one morning and realizes what an asshole he's been practically his entire life. Then I hope he gathers his big giant family in one room and apologizes for dragging them into this crazy lifestyle and they go out and do something positive with all this free time they seem to have. But, until then, Fred Phelps, you are a Douche Bag! Maybe the biggest Douche Bag walking the planet at this given moment.