Come out of the closet Fred!

So, Fred Phelps church is heading to Plattsburg again. A little refresher on Fred Phelps. He is a preacher that rants on about virtually everything that is going wrong is the fault of homosexuals. He spews hatred and venom against all that is homosexually related. He has even sunk to the level of protesting military funerals, because , as his daughters says ‘when you turn everything over in the government to fags, soldiers come home in body bags’. His group plans to be in Plattsburgh Mar 6 to protest the showing of ‘The Laramie Project’, a show about Matt Shepard who was brutally killed in 1998 because he was gay.

            What does this accomplish? I’ll tell you what it does not accomplish. It does not convert anyone to his beliefs. It does not make anyone to take his viewpoint into consideration. It does not cause there to be more understanding of his point of view. What it does accomplish is people recognizing his view of hate, and how it has no place in our society. When he came up last time to boycott Dan Stewart (the openly gay mayor of Plattsburg at the time), he didn’t forward his cause at all. What it did was get people out of their seats who had been on the sidelines of this debate. People who really didn’t care before, now came out vehemently against Pastor Phelps viewpoints. People who we before homophobic, were now understanding better what gay people have to put up with, and were sympathizing with them If anything, it caused a great amount of people to change their viewpoints of gay people, and not in the way Phelps wanted. For the Laramie Project, this is unbelievable advertising. Many more people will go see this, and have a more empathetic view of gays, and change many of their feelings and attitudes they previously held.

            Phelps picketing of military funerals is an unbelievable low. People who gave the ultimate sacrifice for America are being invaded at their very worst hour. If you want people to completely hate you and your message, this is a great way to do it. People will hate him, and actually have more sympathy and understanding of gays because of this. Just out of self preservation, people will stand up for gays. No family member who attended one of these funerals would ever be caught agreeing with WHATEVER message Phelps was spewing.  One great thing about America and humanity is also how incredible things pop up when least expected. There is a motorcycle group that will attend military funerals and stand between the protesters and the families, so the families can have a modicum of comfort without seeing hate signs and drowning out their voices.

            By all accounts, Phelps and his family (which make up a majority of his congregation) are seeming pillars of the community. They are on school boards, government positions, and quite educated. So why would Phelps continue to do something that seems to only cause what he wants to stop to just keep getting stronger. I am reminded of Col Frank Fitts USMC, from the movie ‘American Beauty’. The Marine was as tough as they come, berating his son for not being enough of a man. Everything he did oozed ‘masculinity’ and ‘machismo’. But, of course, he was a closet homosexual who ended up killing Kevin Spacey’s character because his secret was going to get out. Or, leave Hollywood. How about tele-evangelist Ted Haggard? Preach , preach preach against the sin of homosexuality Ted! And he ended up in  a long term homosexual relationship. To paraphrase, ‘Rev Phelps, I think thou dost protest too much!’