The Chris Moeller Archives

Fred Phelps, dead. Just dead.

Fred Phelps Sr., leader of the Westboro Baptist Church in Topeka, Kansas, and the only man in the world that had the presence of mind to lead a protest at Fred Rogers’ funeral, died last week at the age of 84. It’s easy to lose the forest for the trees here, but anyone with a few seconds to think about it should acknowledge that Phelps and the silly antics of his congregation did their anti-gay cause a lot more harm than good. Arguably, gay and human rights supporters never had a better friend to their cause than Phelps. Even the racist Christian Identity movement agrees. Their one-time leader, Rev. Pete Peters, the man so far-right they named him twice, once criticized Phelps for pushing society "towards tolerance [of] of homosexual perverts." (Peters is dead too.) It's fun when hate groups squabble.

I have always been in Phelps’ corner—from a legal standpoint. It’s the height of absurdity, of course, to protest adjacent to a military funeral, publicly declaring that a soldier has died because the United States tolerates sodomy, while church members hold signs that read “God hates fags,” and "Thank God for dead soldiers," but the First Amendment exists specifically to protect the rights of people like Phelps. Those that have popular opinion on their side don’t need the First Amendment. Phelps' extreme antics, combined with the almost universal disdain that his fellow humans hold for him, might in fact be the best argument in history for the freedom of speech. May the best ideas win-- and Phelps was undeniably bringing up the rear.

In 2011, the U.S. Supreme Court overturned a lower court ruling, finding that "speech" like the WBC's, on a public sidewalk, about a public issue, could not be liable for the intentional infliction of "emotional distress." That case was brought by the father of a U.S. serviceman killed in Iraq after the WBC protested the soldier's funeral, and it certainly became a popular cause. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, along with 40 other members of the Senate, filed briefs opposing Phelps. So did the state of Kansas and 47 other states and the District of Columbia. The Court held firm for Phelps, 8 to 1 in fact.

Phelps has been accurately evaluated as such a ridiculous, inconsequential figure of the American backwoods that no real movement seemed to arise to organize a protest upon the occasion of his death Wednesday. Also, there was no funeral to protest because, as Fred's daughter explained, their "unaffiliated" splinter church of a splinter church of a major splinter Protestant church "doesn't worship the dead." I got a kick out of the opposition group that showed up near the church in Topeka this weekend. It included two members of the post-irony generation holding an oversized sign that read “Sorry for your loss.”

Now I wonder if we’ll see Phelps’ splintered congregation, which was always made up mostly of family members, numbered about 40 at its peak, and supposedly excommunicated Fred weeks before his death, continue to engage in idiotic, but legal behavior. Since the cause was never about saving souls to begin with, it will come down to whether or not the next generation of Phelpses can collectively match Papa Fred’s otherworldly-sized ego. We're left to watch for that, and to wait for the posthumous reports of Phelps' discreet man-on-man sexual encounters during his life. Did it seem to you guys like the man doth protest a little too much?

posted by CM @ 7:18 PM