It looks like I’ve been doing a pretty good job of ignoring the church – I’ve never heard of it.
I have seen where several local Motorcycle clubs will, for free, set up a parameter for the family and keep the jirks at bay at the family request. I have a friend who is a professional bagpiper. He does a lot of funerals. Many are military. He has seen a lot of bikers at these.…It would be difficult for me to ignore this group if they protested one of my loved ones funerals.
That’s one angry church.According to them:
No doubt they sing that famous hymn:
Jesus hates me, this I know
For the Bible tells me so…
STM that Fred’s religion is far more perverted than the homosexuality he never ceases to rail against
Don’t know much about them except that they seem to enjoy the camera time that the media gives them. Sad to say it, but this is the way many Americans view all people of faith… according to them “we all look alike.” (Hmm? Can’t you get in trouble these days for saying such a thing… Oh, not when you’re talking about Christianity.)Just don’t look at them while entering and leaving the funeral. They can’t legally go on private property. It’s the media circus that the creates the disturbance. It is not the grieving families that enable these people. It is the counter protesters and media. They give them the publicity they crave. They give them power. Without the attention they’d be just a bunch of wacky people with signs. They get money and power because they are able to provoke people.It is difficult to ignore people who make a big thing of picketing funerals - all the more so, seeing as they are not exactly shrinking violets. If they would only shut up at funerals, to ignore them might be possible: but how is that possible ? ISTM you’re being very unfair to those whose loved ones are maligned & their memories vomited on.
They don’t have enough power to bully if ignored. All they can do is hold a bunch of stupid signs on public property. To stand up and “fight” only emboldens them. If you do anything illegal they can sue(and they have already made thousands of dollars), and if you merely counter protest you just bring more attention and dignify them. You are essentially saying you care enough about what they have to say to lower yourself to their behavior. They want people to react. That’s why they post their picket schedule.
. My brother in law was junior-high friends with one of the Phelp’s sons–one of the two sons that ended up gay and apparently the root cause of setting nutty Fred off on his “crusade” Back then (the 1970s) Fred Phelps had his family running a candy-for charity business, the charity primarily putting Fred through law school (he was later disbarred, so most of his loyal family are now lawyers). According to the one son, Fred would beat any of his kids who didnt meet a $100+ sales quota. My wife remembers this same son visiting her brother, the poor boy having to suffer having his headshaved (this was the 70s after all).
Stating the obvious may have made your pastor feel good, but it just played right into the WBC plans. Besides self-indulgence, what is the point of paying so much attention to these people?While I lived in Topeka, I saw the Phelps clan picketing many a church–in fact, at that time while I was a Presbyterian (part of my faith journey back to the Catholic Church) my congregation, Westminster Presbyterian was picketed–because our minister from the picket, the prior Sunday, called Fred “a crazy ugly bigot!” Still proud of him!