(no subject)

[slammerkinbabe]

Fred Phelps, founder of the Westboro Baptist Church, is dying. Please please please don't picket his funeral.

Let's remember why all the funeral pickets were awful: because they made the funerals hell for those who were grieving. Picketing a funeral does nothing to the dead. But the people who grieve for Phelps are not all terrible. Many of his children have left the church,* but that doesn't mean that in some complicated way they may not still love their father, and whether they do or not, they deserve closure. A funeral can provide that. But not if it takes place with hatred being shouted in the background.

And above all: Phelps's protests were based in hate. LGBTQ activism is based in love, not hate.

Please don't picket Phelps's funeral.

_______________________

*Incidentally, VERY weird detail in that article: Phelps himself was excommunicated from the church in the middle of last year. No one outside the WBC knows the reason. Some are theorizing he had a change of heart, but that seems improbable to me, after a lifetime of fiercely determined hatred. Very interesting though.

Comments

[slammerkinbabe.livejournal.com]

Wait, seriously? They excommunicate all dying members? That's insane. Then again, they're insane.

[nelc.livejournal.com]

I don't know enough about them, but it's possible that as the founder, Phelps is the oldest member, or at least, the first to suffer a drawn-out fatal illness. Others may have died more suddenly.