haters

barry mentioned this story to me last night. he had never heard of fred phelps or the "god hates fags" gang (i refuse to link to their website, though if you google that phrase you will find it quickly. and you will be disgusted in a way that few websites have or will ever be able to disgust you).

this took place in smyrna TN. your girlfriend is from smyrna, though i'm sure she wasn't there and i don't expect her to blog about it.

anyway, courtesy of the washington post:

Members of a church say God is punishing American soldiers for defending a country that harbors gays, and they brought their anti-gay message to the funerals Saturday of two Tennessee soldiers killed in Iraq.

The church members were met with scorn from local residents. They chased the church members cars' down a highway, waving flags and screaming "God bless America."
...
The church members carried signs and shouted things such as "God hates fags" and "God hates you."

About 10 church members protested near Smyrna United Methodist Church and nearly 20 stood outside the National Guard Armory in Ashland City. Members have demonstrated at other soldier funerals across the nation.

The funerals were for Staff Sgt. Asbury Fred Hawn II, 35, in Smyrna and Spc. Gary Reese Jr., 22, in Ashland City. Both were members of the Tennessee National Guard.

Hundreds of Smyrna and Ashland City residents and families of other soldiers turned out at both sites to counter the message the Westboro Baptist members brought.

So many counterdemonstrators were gathered in Ashland City that police, sheriff's deputies and state troopers were brought in to control traffic and protect the protesters.

gotta love those counterprotesters, literally running the hatemongerers out of town.

but what strikes me about this story is that they were protesting GI funerals!

phelps and his family (the bulk of his church is made up of his numerous offspring as well as his offspring's offspring... i guess god hates birth control as much as he hates gays) are notorious for protesting at the funerals of gays or people who've died of AIDS. those assholes even protested at matthew shepard's funeral, which should indicate just what type of sick fucks they are. they revel in hatred and they claim to do it in jesus's name, amen.

but these GIs weren't gay, from what i can tell (per "don't ask don't tell", how could i tell?). they're just normal GIs who were killed in iraq:

The Rev. Fred Phelps, founder of Westboro Baptist in Kansas, contends that American soldiers are being killed in Iraq as vengeance from God for protecting a country that harbors gays.

how can anyone, even the stupidest, most despicable, most pathologically hateful people in the nation (which is probably a fairly good description of this bunch) think that it was a good idea to protest GI funerals? how could they think that would be anything but a total PR nightmare?

i guess now we know who really doesn't support the troops: the homophobes in the radical right.

update: that same weekend, a few of the haters also protested a similar funeral in martinsville IN. i'd heard about that protest, but didn't find any stories about it until now, but didn't find the actual stories until now, when i got them from media matters.

why would the stories be on media matters? well it turns out that sweet sean hannity tried to claim that the god hates fags gang are part of the "anti-war left"! apparently not only does god hate fags, but sean hates facts.¶