A Face of Hate

This is one face of hate in America that gets too much media play: Fred Phelps. He is the pastor of the Westboro Baptist Church in Topeka. To give you an idea of this person, his main website is God Hates Fags.

This gentleman (and I use the term loosely) pickets funerals of people who have died of AIDs with placards saying delightful things like God Hates Fags. When I read a CNN article Monday about his new protest, I was stunned. He has a new cause: picketing the funerals of soldiers slain in places like Iraq with placards saying things like Thank God for IED's.

Personally, I am against the Bush policy on Iraq and other parts in the Middle East. Yet I support the troops, be them American, British, Canadian, etc. They are doing their job as they are told to do.

But Phelps and his gang are protesting funerals of slain soldiers because:

the soldiers are fighting for an army that represents a country that accepts homosexuality.

What the fuck? Thing is, these soldiers are not gay. They are straight, many married with kids, yet this guy and his gang are setting up protests at these funerals. As if the families and friends of these dead soldiers don’t have enough to deal with.

This guy gives even conservative Christians a bad name. Some of my friends are conservative Christians. One of the church I occasionally go to is conservative. But they would not spew the bilge this guy does. Their belief is that God hates the sin but not the sinner.

And that is the main point. The New Testament reveals a God of love. The whole reason of Christ was:

For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life [John 6:13]

People like Phelps are focused, well consumed by the God of the Old Testament; the God that is jealous, wrathful, spiteful and at times, fickle. You look at the books he quotes, they are mostly from the Old Testament, like Jeremiah.

The thing is Phelps is a media whore and a coward. I first heard about him because he and his small gang picketed the funeral of Matthew Shepard, in October 1998. His murder in Larmarie was shocking to many around the world. So he got air time with his vile placards and hate filled speeches.

And for some time, he got quite a lot of national media coverage. But after a while, people stopped listening. So now he is picketing funerals of slain soldiers and is back in the news again. After while, this will blow over and he will find another way to present his hate filled message.

He is a coward because he dare not pick someone who would stand up to him. Picketing a funeral is an easy thing and what confrontation that might occur will be small. You don’t see them picketing large gay gathers, like pride parades.

And only a coward would go after grieving family and friends to push their message of hate. Their focus is inwards. But what makes this especially repellent is most of the people at the funerals aren’t even gay.

Over the past couple of years, I have been exploring the spiritual side of myself. Some of the journey has allowed me to reconnect to Christianity. What I have found, be the people I have met, the courses I’ve been involved in and books from different theologians and scholars I've read, Christianity is not a religion of hate. God is not a God of hate.

The hate comes from the people who promulgate their own interpretation, their own version of the Scriptures. It becomes their word, not the word of their God. And through out the Old & New Testaments, the people are warned of people like Phelps who promote their own belief and not of their God.

And someone like Phelps forgets one of the major exhortations in the New Testament. Christ, when asked about what is the greatest commandment, he said it is loving God with your heart and soul. The second greatest commandment is:

And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbour as yourself’. [Matt 22:38]

All the other commandments derive from these two commandments. Of course, we cannot forget:

Do not judge, and you will not be judged. Do not condemn, and you will not be condemned. Forgive, and you will be forgiven. [Luke 6:37]

My Christian friends have issues about my sexuality. Their faith says if I have a sexual relationship with another man, I am sinning. And the sin is compounded because I know it is a sin. This has caused them some honest pain and soul-searching.

Yet this is between me and God. I feel, they hope in some ways I will see their point and change (well be celibate). Then again, I am well on my way in that aspect but that is another point.

In their way, they witness and hope people will see that their faith is the way. But what keeps them honest is their Scriptures. They are not supposed to judge. That is not their purvey, only their God can so this. And follow the hardest commandment of all: love your neighbour as yourself. But that is another post.

I am not being naive here. There are strains of hatred and prejudice in Christianity. Be it anti-Semitism in the Catholic Church or homphobia in various groups like the Evangelicals, it is out there. There are conservative Christian groups that picket films and lately the Oscars because of the nominations Brokeback Mountain received.

But nothing like the virulent, nasty diatribes that someone like Fred Phelps spews or his picketing. They wouldn’t write or say something like:

Deal with it! All else is trivial and unimportant. All the fag caterwauling, candlelight vigils, court orders, etc., can't buy these perverts one drop of water to cool their tongues.

Conservative Christians like Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson do attack gay groups, and occasionally a gay person. They have said moronic things like Hurricane Katrina was sent by God to cleanse a modern Sodom. But they would not go after the grieving family and friends of a gay man who just died. And now it is slain soldiers.

And with his hatred, he causes a lot of pain to the living who have nothing to do with his campaign against homosexuality. Fred Phelps does not dare go up against a living gay man. He choses the easy route. In the end, it is the living that are the victims in Fred Phelps' crusade of hate. But he does not care. He is doing God's work. Yeah, right!