While most Americans — like those in Maine, for example — practice their bigotry from the privacy of a voting booth, only one organization has consistently shown that they pride their doughy, white, tractor-pulling heritage so much that they’re willing to parade it through the streets of America. The Westboro Baptist Church, believing that the United States is cursed by God for accepting gay people, has protested plays, movies, Mr. Rogers, soldiers’ funerals and anything else that might result in someone paying attention to them.
The church is led by Fred Phelps, the cranky id of a 350-year-old man made manifest in a tracksuit. Through sites like godhatesfags.com, Phelps took the blase Midwest attitude of “God hates everyone who isn’t me,” and rode it to international fame like the dirty, dirty, closeted submissive it is.
But every legacy must end and lately there has been trouble for the Westboro Baptist Church. The group has faced recent setbacks in protesting funerals and today it seems like they’re really reaching for the attention that once came so easily. It also can’t be ignored that Phelps himself is now older than most of the Biblical patriarchs and every year his resemblance to the Crypt Keeper becomes more pronounced. However, long before Phelps dies and sees – just before he steps into the void – a fabulous vision of all the saints wearing leather assless chaps, his church will end with more of a whimper than a bang. We predict that they’ll protest stupider and stupider things until people stop paying attention altogether.
Divine Wrath after the jump!
