These people are scary. These idiots protest at the funerals of fallen soldiers and tell their families that the dead soldiers were struck down by God because they were defending a nation that supports and gives comfort to gays and lesbians. According to this jackass, "God Hates Fags." Yep, you read that right. They also protested at the funerals of miners killed in West Virginia with signs that read "Thank God for Dead Miners," "God Hates Your Tears" and "Miners in Hell," arguing that the miners' deaths were a sign of God's wrath at America for tolerating gays.
These people are filled with hate and fear. They are a tiny percentage of the Christian population in this country, but they are loud. Loving, open-hearted Christians need to be louder. They need to shout down these hateful idiots and prevent them from equating God with hatred--Jesus taught that God is love.
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I doubt that we'll see too many Christians shouting down the likes of Fred Phelps and his congragation of hateful nutcases anytime soon, because Christianity as a whole teaches that homsexuality is an abominable sin and that Christians should hate sin. Yes, it also says that Christians should love the sinner. But it doesn't do a very good job of showing how to love people one believes to be freely--i.e., sinfully--choosing to do hateful things.
As for Phelps and his group, they are just so darn wacko that I find myself laughing uncontrollably at the absurdity of their pronouncements: Every bad thing that happens to good people of this country is because this country "tolerates" gays. One looking to fashion the most outrageous parody imaginable of Christian homophobia and intolerance couldn't hope to top that. Phelps isn't as "scary" as he is simply and profoundly pathetic.
One of the reasons I quit being Catholic back in the day is that the Church presents Paul's version of Christ's teachings much more than they present the actual teachings of Jesus. Paul hated homosexuality (some have speculated that he was actually gay), but he also taught that single men should not marry, among other things found nowhere in the teachings of Jesus.
Protestantism continues this Paulist mistake and builds on it.
Jesus never taught anything about homosexuality. Considering his other teachings, one has to assume that he would have approved of loving relationships of any kind.
Christians need to resurrect the teachings of Jesus and ditch the Paulist crap. If they did, shouting down morons like Phelps would be second-nature.
To me, Phelps and others like him are too easily seen as laughable and pathetic. We think they are harmless because they are so extreme. But what this shows is how insenstive we have become to hate. The day we can look at hate and find it absurd rather than frightening is the day we lose the battle for a moral world.
Hatred can be both absurd and frightening. Sometimes it's more of one, sometimes more of the other. Phelp's brand of hatred lies toward the absurd end of the spectrum. The young man who recently attacked patrons in a gay bar with a hatchet and gun before dying in a gunfight with police obviously lies at the opposite end. But you're right, we should never be content to simply dismiss or laugh at unjustifiable hatred. We should remain cognizant of its capacity to cause harm, and we should always stand ready to oppose it.
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