I don't even know any more

[kingandy]

Okay, now seriously. Is http://www.godhatesfags.com/ for real? I honestly can't tell if it's heartfelt zealotry or dedicated, straight-faced parody. Hilarious though the photographs of cheerfully beaming followers clutching merrily-hued placards reading "GOD: AMERICA'S TERRORIST" and "YOU EAT YOUR BABIES" are, it's worrying to think they are going on actual pickets and haranguing actual people.

Plus, of course, even if it is a parody (and I'm genuinely not sure either way), it's so very straight-faced and so very seriously-produced that some people may act on it.

Edited to add: Oh right, it's entirely serious. I think I was aware of it before, but just reading through the site, the whole thing seems so very absurd that it's hard to take on face value. Seriously, the site reads like an Onion article. Come on, they have placards reading "THANK GOD FOR IEDs!" And they're so happy! It just does not compute.

Comments

[wulfboy.livejournal.com]

They picketed a store because it sold Swedish vacuum cleaners ...

I've vaguely heard of these people before, and it makes some old head machinery start firing up. Picketing funerals makes me twitchy. Picketing the funerals of dead servicemen and women makes me irrationally angry, probably more than is absolutely merited. Odd what the upbringing can do.

These people are evil. That's an evocative label I know, and labelling is wrong ... but its the best I can come up with. There's something about hate mongers that just turns off the rational parts of my brain, short-circuits my personhal belief systems, and brings me back to basics.

I'm very much a freedom of speech sort of fellow, but I'm also a freedom-to-take-the-consequences fellow. These folks, and these people (and people like them), need to be recognized as the criminals (or mental headcases) that they are and dealt with appropriately by the local authorities.

[kingandy]

I'm astonished they're allowed to continue, TBH. I suspect they're very good at reading the legal fine print and staying precisely on the line between "peaceful demonstration" and "no more right to live on God's earth than a weasel".

I think I need a "FIRE TORNADO" icon.

[ubernils.livejournal.com]

Phelps was a lawyer before he started the church. What's interesting was that he was actually a civil rights lawyer, taking up abuse cases. Of course, as it turns out he only did it because nobody else was taking the cases and he saw a cash cow, and at one point half of all court cases pending in his town were frivolous cases filed by Phelps. He occasionally got a real one, but it was buried under piles of fake crap. That's pretty much the same strategy he uses now. If anyone does anything that could potentially be percieved as any kind of civil rights violation he sues the everloving crap out of them. Even if he loses, the hassle is enough that people tend to just let the Phelps clan be insane and hateful and ignore them. Several states, however *have* passed laws forbidding protesting a funeral as a result of Phelps, saying essentially that it's harassment and therefore not protected speech. Phelps is pretty famous in the states for being a ridiculous nutbag. Not even most conservatives support him.

Oh extra fun fact about Phelps: he's a predestinationist, which means he's not trying to "save" anyone's "soul" "for Jesus." He's just trying to gloat. The man really is the lowest life form on the planet.

[phyrbyrd.livejournal.com]

Weasels have PLENTY of right to live on this earth, thankyou.
The term you might be thinking of is 'compensation lawyer'.