In which too little - and too much - comes too late
I left Topeka Kansas over eleven years ago. We left for a number of reasons, not the least being the attraction of Colorado's environment and standard of living. It certainly didn't hurt that we were moving away from what may be the most embarrassing home town in the US.
We're pretty liberal people, and we have a simple live-and-let-live philosophy. We have friends of all sorts. We tend to value people for their skills and attitudes, and reject discrimination on the basis of people's beliefs, sexuality, skin color, and etc. We also tend to reject people who do discriminate. Thus leaving the Westboro Baptist Church behind was something of a relief.
The church and it's autocrat, the very un-Reverend Fred Phelps, have played a role in the fabric of Topeka for years. A civil rights lawyer who was later disbarred, Fred has taken up a cause against gays (not to mention Catholics and Jews) in more recent years. In the ten or so years I lived in Topeka, we became accustomed to - but not complacent about - the daily protests staged by Fred and his toadies. The lurid signs were supported by church members as young as grade-school age. Lurid, yes, and graphic. "God Hates Fags" is really one of the milder epithets. They underscored the written message with obscenities screamed at passers by. For years, daily faxes were transmitted to anyone with a fax number, filled with hate speech and even more lurid and borderline-obscene images.
He thanked God for AIDS.
Fred and thralls appeared daily at 8th and McVicar and on Sundays at Gage Park. He picketed businesses, he picketed performance at the Performing Arts Center, he picketed churches that preached a message of tolerance. He picketed gay pride events, and prominent political gatherings. He even picketed Billy Graham. And he picketed the funerals of gays, suspected gays, and gay sympathizers.
Rude, lewd behavior aside, picketing a funeral is about the lowest of the low. An appalling level of schadenfreude was exhibited at the funeral for Matthew Shepard, and the celebration just increased from there.
Yes, Fred got some attention for his bad behavior. Occasionally, he even made national news. Topeka natives cringed and denied residing anywhere near Topeka, or flatly denounced his actions and philosophy, fearful that owning up to Topeka would paint themselves with Fred's broad brush. It was with utter relief then that we left.
Too bad that's not the end of the story.
About a year and a half ago, I was working in Columbia, SC with clients. Columbia is of course the home of Fort Jackson US Army Base. As such, there is a lot of support for soldiers and their families; the TV station had a wall of pictures of service members who were currently stationed in the Middle East. As soldiers returned to the base in body bags, Fred took up a new crusade. He started picketing the funerals of soldiers, claiming that the soldiers' deaths are a sign of God punishing America for tolerating homosexuality.
This is very bad behavior, Fred. Bad enough that the American public is outraged enough to initiate a number of new laws prohibiting Fred's brand of behavior at funerals. About a dozen states have passed such laws to date and Congress has addressed the Fred issue by outlawing protests at military funerals at federal cemeteries.
These laws, while laudable, are too little too late. Where was the outrage when Fred picketed the funerals of gays? Are dead gays less pitiable than dead soldiers? Do their families suffer less? Are soldiers more honorable for their line of work killing (or supporting the people who are killing) people? Are gays less human because they love in a different way than most of the population? Do they deserve a horrible death because of who they love? What about children or straight adults - including the vast numbers of Africans - who die from AIDS? What about their orphaned children? How can a civilized society be indifferent toward Fred's behavior towards gays, but sternly condemn his behavior toward the victims of a misguided war?
Perhaps one can glean Fred's true mission from an article in USA Today a couple of weeks ago, in which he chortled gleefully over all the attention he's getting. It seems like he gets a lot of attention. Frequently on my travels he pops up on the local news; my first experience with this phenomenon was that March 2005 trip to South Carolina, where he made the local news for picketing a funeral of several local soldiers. I long ago ceased to believe that Fred was newsworthy, largely because media attention feeds his mission and thus his ego.
The attention that the media is giving Fred now is too much, too late. They didn't find him newsworthy until he picketed Matthew Shepard's funeral; what makes him newsworthy now? Has patriotism become more prevalent than compassion? Or is it just a slow news day?
We're pretty liberal people, and we have a simple live-and-let-live philosophy. We have friends of all sorts. We tend to value people for their skills and attitudes, and reject discrimination on the basis of people's beliefs, sexuality, skin color, and etc. We also tend to reject people who do discriminate. Thus leaving the Westboro Baptist Church behind was something of a relief.
The church and it's autocrat, the very un-Reverend Fred Phelps, have played a role in the fabric of Topeka for years. A civil rights lawyer who was later disbarred, Fred has taken up a cause against gays (not to mention Catholics and Jews) in more recent years. In the ten or so years I lived in Topeka, we became accustomed to - but not complacent about - the daily protests staged by Fred and his toadies. The lurid signs were supported by church members as young as grade-school age. Lurid, yes, and graphic. "God Hates Fags" is really one of the milder epithets. They underscored the written message with obscenities screamed at passers by. For years, daily faxes were transmitted to anyone with a fax number, filled with hate speech and even more lurid and borderline-obscene images.
He thanked God for AIDS.
Fred and thralls appeared daily at 8th and McVicar and on Sundays at Gage Park. He picketed businesses, he picketed performance at the Performing Arts Center, he picketed churches that preached a message of tolerance. He picketed gay pride events, and prominent political gatherings. He even picketed Billy Graham. And he picketed the funerals of gays, suspected gays, and gay sympathizers.
Rude, lewd behavior aside, picketing a funeral is about the lowest of the low. An appalling level of schadenfreude was exhibited at the funeral for Matthew Shepard, and the celebration just increased from there.
Yes, Fred got some attention for his bad behavior. Occasionally, he even made national news. Topeka natives cringed and denied residing anywhere near Topeka, or flatly denounced his actions and philosophy, fearful that owning up to Topeka would paint themselves with Fred's broad brush. It was with utter relief then that we left.
Too bad that's not the end of the story.
About a year and a half ago, I was working in Columbia, SC with clients. Columbia is of course the home of Fort Jackson US Army Base. As such, there is a lot of support for soldiers and their families; the TV station had a wall of pictures of service members who were currently stationed in the Middle East. As soldiers returned to the base in body bags, Fred took up a new crusade. He started picketing the funerals of soldiers, claiming that the soldiers' deaths are a sign of God punishing America for tolerating homosexuality.
This is very bad behavior, Fred. Bad enough that the American public is outraged enough to initiate a number of new laws prohibiting Fred's brand of behavior at funerals. About a dozen states have passed such laws to date and Congress has addressed the Fred issue by outlawing protests at military funerals at federal cemeteries.
These laws, while laudable, are too little too late. Where was the outrage when Fred picketed the funerals of gays? Are dead gays less pitiable than dead soldiers? Do their families suffer less? Are soldiers more honorable for their line of work killing (or supporting the people who are killing) people? Are gays less human because they love in a different way than most of the population? Do they deserve a horrible death because of who they love? What about children or straight adults - including the vast numbers of Africans - who die from AIDS? What about their orphaned children? How can a civilized society be indifferent toward Fred's behavior towards gays, but sternly condemn his behavior toward the victims of a misguided war?
Perhaps one can glean Fred's true mission from an article in USA Today a couple of weeks ago, in which he chortled gleefully over all the attention he's getting. It seems like he gets a lot of attention. Frequently on my travels he pops up on the local news; my first experience with this phenomenon was that March 2005 trip to South Carolina, where he made the local news for picketing a funeral of several local soldiers. I long ago ceased to believe that Fred was newsworthy, largely because media attention feeds his mission and thus his ego.
The attention that the media is giving Fred now is too much, too late. They didn't find him newsworthy until he picketed Matthew Shepard's funeral; what makes him newsworthy now? Has patriotism become more prevalent than compassion? Or is it just a slow news day?
posted by Melanie Unruh-Bays at
1:19 PM
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