American readers can take some some solice in the knowledge that they are no longer alone: Now, according to the ever delightful Reverend Fred Phelps http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Westboro_Baptist_Church, God also hates Australia.
See, you know all those massive fires we had the other week? Well, they were actually a divine punishment sent upon Australians because this country simply has far too many Hershey Highwaymen and Clam Jousters running around.

You can find Westboro Church’s bizarre media release here:
http://www.godhatesfags.com/written/fliers/20090216_australia-national-memorial-service.pdf

Although those of you usuing networks restricting access to “hate sites” will just have to put up with the much drier news article:
http://news.ninemsn.com.au/article.aspx?id=754638

_________________
Madness takes it's toll - Please have correct change.

Oh, that lovely Westboro bunch

I'm at a loss at to how exactly they reconcile their beliefs with Christianity, i mean, they've definitely got the 'god smites stuff' bit that crops up in the Hebrew Bible a lot, but they seem to have completely bypassed the 'love and forgiveness' stuff that Jesus went on about a bit in the newer bit...

As I say, a lovely bunch

An excellent question since almost all the rest of the religious right completely disowns them. Some people have even hypothesised that Fred Phelps is actually a plant by the liberal left to make the religious right look ridiculous - although I thought they were doing just fine in that respect without any help...

Actually, I really hope they do carry out their threat to picket the National Day of Mourning.
With the current mood in Australia (which, unlike America, does not have any freedom of speech laws) I would think there's a very real possibility that these whacky funsters could well get the living snot beaten out of them.

_________________
Madness takes it's toll - Please have correct change.

Jesus is not all about love, by his (alleged) own word:

_________________
Lightning Jukebox <-- my music blog

Phelps (and everyone else affiliated with his 'Church') is one of those few rare idiots on this Earth to whom I think it would be most necessary to inflict upon the most gruesome death possible.

I wonder how there can exist people who take the hogwash that comes out of his mouth seriously.

EDIT: Ok, interesing. Wikipedia claims that he ran for the Democratic Party Senate and governor positions and has gotten up to 31% of the vote. Seriously scary.

While that is superficially true, I think that needs to be considered in context:

a) That result (Phelps’ best to date) is from 1992, taking place a full six years before Phelps & his church became internationally notorious when they picketed the funeral of Matthew Sheppard. (For anyone not familiar with that sordid tale: Matthew was killed in a gay-hate crime where he had been beaten, robbed, tortured and crucified to a fence. Members of Westboro turned up at the funeral bearing signs including:
"Matt Shepard rots in Hell", "AIDS Kills Fags Dead" and "God Hates Fags”). Before this event virtually no one outside of Topeka had heard of Phelps or Westboro.

b) Phelps has run four times, but all of these have been primary nominations for the Democratic Party, not actual elections. (I can’t claim to be an expert on the American electoral system, but my own understanding is that primaries are simply the party members voting to decide which candidate to run in the actual election. I’ll leave it to someone more familiar with American politics to confirm that.)

c) Although 31% seems large, Phelps had only one opponent in that primary who at 69% scored more than twice what Phelps did – a thrashing by any other name.

d) All four times Phelps has run in a primary he has come last, and all four times, the margin between Phelps and the winner has been gigantic, even when the winner didn’t take out an absolute majority.
(For anyone who’s interested, the full primary results appear at the bottom of Phelps’ Wikkipedia entry:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fred_Phelps)

I think it’s more interesting he keeps running as a Democrat. Perhaps he’s bothered about what GOP members keep getting up to with junior Congressional aides and in public toilets at airports?

_________________
Madness takes it's toll - Please have correct change.

Didn't they finally catch the guy that was responsible for all the fires?

bah! Fuck all them! seriously. What is wrong with humans these days?

They have caught one guy who although appearing to be a likely candidate, has not yet been bought to trial, and there is serious concern that he may get lynched long before a trial can occur.
However, even if guilty, there's no way he did all of them.
I believe the cops have a couple of other "persons of interest" and at least one of the fires is thought to be the result of a cigarette butt thrown from a car. Another has been suggested to be the result of a faulty/collapsed power pole.

_________________
Madness takes it's toll - Please have correct change.

WBC and fred phelps are a source of many lulz on the interwebs, similarly to scientologists...

And as HCI said (in alternative wording) they are keeping it old testament...they need to realise God stopped smiting stuff around 2009 years ago...(its more logical that god was used as an explanation for unexplainable events at the time...but its more fun if we call it smiting)

Hail all!
Just dropping in my two-cents whilst passing by... (Although knowing how I write lots, that'll probabally turn into $20.00 worth as per usual! )
IIRC: The Tanakh (As followed by Judaism) is pretty much the Old Testament alone, as one of the current beliefs in Judaism is that the Messiah hasn't actually come to Earth yet.

Admittedly I'm not familiar with the church of which ye speak...But from the other writings here, it sounds to me like one of the worst kind.

I will admit that I'm not all too familiar with the King James version of the Bible...But is it really written in that way all the way through? As someone who used to be pseudo-Christian (Having been encouraged to follow Christianity asd a child by my parents) the very tone of the passage that ye quoted there seems to contradict the views of Christianity as I was taught it!

From what I've heard of the KJV in the past, it strikes me as a text that isn't honestly as Christian as it tries to make out. After all, Christianity (As far as I understand it) is supposed to encourage a degree of peace amongst it's followers, with intolerance and "retribution" exercised only against those who are proven to have committed a gross sin...

...Although in that regard, "committing a gross sin" in the eyes of modern Christianity appears to include anything remotely connected to being homosexual. I know that I get enough intolerance and God-bothering exercised against me by a lot of Christians simply because I'm an Asatruer, and my main Gods/Godesses happen to be Thor, Odin and Freja.

I could write volumes and volumes on the subject of religious texts, and how their accuracy and authenticity could be questioned at every stage...But there is neither time nor space for that here.

Simply put: My views on a lot of the modern day Christian texts is that they have been deliberateley mis-translated and changed over the years in an attempt to control what the human race should and shouldn't do...And if I were a Christian myself, the only version of the Old Testament that I would read would be the Tanakh in it's original Hebrew form.
There is a very good reason why it is a severe offence in Islam to translate the words of the Qur'an into languages other than Arabic...And if Christianity had adopted a similar practice with their texts, then mayhap the religion itself would be a whole lot less divided than it is today.

I agree wholeheartedly with both of the above sentiments...And I for one hope that Mr. Phelps and his "church" wind up making a personal acquaintance with their god very shortly. Having particularly close and narrow views on religion is one thing...But disrupting and desecrating rememberance ceremonies held by others because of those views? Now that's something that I (And hopefully anyone else with their head screwed-on right) take particular exception to...And I would have no qualms whatsoever in making extremely horrific use of my Blade to emphesise that point!

Anyhow...Religion is a rather difficult subject for me to discuss at length on public forums without running the risk of accidentally offending anyone, so I'm going to leave it at that and see if anyone shares my views. I do still lurk here a lot, so I'll spot any replies aimed my way.

Farewell...And whatever religion ye may follow, accept the troth that some may disagree with thy beliefs (That is a basic part of human nature)...But never accept a degree of intolerance that directly threatens thy religion's beliefs and/or followers!
+++ DieselDragon +++

_________________
News: Currently online from public PCs only thanks to my ISP being an ass and refusing to fix my burst Internet connection. It will take me a long time to see and reply to posts and PMs. :-)

DieselDragon.co.uk - My own catacomb o' random crap. Find me elsewhere! :-)

I can't find anything in the media as to whether they went ahead with the picket or not, although I did notice a govt minister earlier muttering something about disruptive troublemakers not being welcome and security, so I imagine if they did go ahead with it, the moment they raised a placcard were probably arrested for acts likely to breach the peace or some such thing.

_________________
Madness takes it's toll - Please have correct change.

We can only hope!

IMO the only "right" place for that lot would be in a prison cell...Preferably one that they'd be sharing with several big, burly gay guys who havn't experienced carnal pleasures in quite a number of months!

_________________
News: Currently online from public PCs only thanks to my ISP being an ass and refusing to fix my burst Internet connection. It will take me a long time to see and reply to posts and PMs. :-)

DieselDragon.co.uk - My own catacomb o' random crap. Find me elsewhere! :-)

_________________
Madness takes it's toll - Please have correct change.

Hehe, I do still wonder why those guys are still running loose. Discrimination, spreading hate and child abuse should be decent charges to start with, right?

Or at least send in the children protection programs, those poor kids get their whole future destroyed by this.

The thing here is that U.S. "freedom of speech" thing - the same constitutional amendment that has allowed the KKK to promote their racist crud for decades. A certain amount of Westboro's (many of whom have law degrees) income is derived from suing anyone who assaults them or otherwise tries to shut their protests down for violating their right to "freedom of speech".
(This probably explains why they didn't go through with their threat to protest the Australian bushfires : "freedom of speech" rules here - much looser than the U.S., laws about "hate speech" - lots, chance of being physically assaulted for behaving like asshats - very high.)

I think my personal favourite was "Odin is God: Read The Mighty Thor Vol 5".

_________________
Madness takes it's toll - Please have correct change.

This is the best counter protest I've seen (maybe except the one where the guy used the WBC's attention to have a bake sale with all donations going to something that the WBC hates, that was a pretty good counter protest)

I wish there were some way to get rid of them, but almost everybody in that church goes through law school, so they have a ton of built in lawyers. So we're pretty much stuck with them, even though Fred himself is disbarred. That and other worse hate groups are still allowed to run around the US like the IKA and other white supremacist organizations, so I think we're stuck with him unfortunately.

Heh! Try this one from the vaults for size:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i7iXbWsO4ik

_________________
Madness takes it's toll - Please have correct change.

That was absolutely hilarious!

I generally treat them as a joke. People who allow themselves to be upset by the WBC's comical dogma are simply playing right into their hands, not only emotionally, but also financially as others have mentioned above. They WANT to get under people's skins and spread their views of hatred for anything that doesn't reside strictly within their own 4 x 4 boxed in view of the world. The sooner people learn to ignore them and laugh them off, the better.

Michael Moore learned how to do it, as evidenced by his episode of "The Awful Truth" where he and a troupe of homosexuals approached Phelps in a "Sodomobile", a flamboyantly decorated minivan, and much laughter ensued because Moore intended the whole thing to be a joke, and therefore turned Fred's game against him.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ABH_RFeeGAs

This group of frat boys displayed a perfect way to laugh off the WBC.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OZfZiBRFM5w

And for my third example, this group of kids also had the right idea.





Honestly, since we kinda can't get rid of these people realistically, we may as well laugh 'em off. That's the best way to get back at 'em.

Bottom Line: These people are clowns and should be treated accordingly (laughed at).

_________________


Click here to read my most recent review: Asphyx - "Last One on Earth"

Satan's cake is a lie
Hahahahhahaaahaha

Ahhh this is great (the comic people picketing back I mean)

_________________
"Be who you are and say what you feel because those who mind don't matter, and those who matter don't mind."

-Dr. Seuss

But what of the children ?

The children break my heart. I can somewhat tolerate adults preaching hateful messages on streets, but I can not tolerate adults who bring children to their hate-protests.

A few years ago there were christian extremists he in Finland protesting the local pride-march and they had their youth with them too. They were 13-15 years old, but it still made me sad.

Heidi

^ LOL

There's also this famous one..

_________________
All that waits me is the grave.