I just got off the phone with Nate and he confirmed what he had written. The rumors had been flying for several weeks, he said, but after a conversation with some of his fellow “excommunicated” family members, he found out that the rumors were true. He elaborated on that final line, too, saying that the Phelps family is now blocking anyone who is no longer with the church from seeing him, including Fred’s sons, daughters, nieces, and nephews.
Why was he kicked out of his own church? Did he have a change of heart near the end of his life? There’s no definitive answer to that and Nate has heard different things (so any explanation is pure speculation right now).
In any case, it appears that Fred Phelps doesn’t have much longer to live. While some may rejoice at that, Nate’s tone over the phone was anything but happy. He’s losing his father. A father who dedicated his life to spreading hatred and made the lives of so many others so miserable, but a father nonetheless.
You know I try to have compassion for everybody (Yes, even Sarah Palin), but in this case I am going to fail in that endeavor.
There is literally NOTHING about this man which is redeemable. He spread more hatred and ignorance in his lifetime than almost any other person I can think of.
I am also interested in why he was excommunicated, and the cynical part of me thinks it might have been his plan all along to quit the church, ask for forgiveness, and then receive that great Christian get out of hell free card from Jesus.
Whatever the answer, it is impossible not to believe that this world will be at least a slightly better place without Fred Phelps walking around among us.
Could pissing on his grave after his death be considered Freedom of Speech and not public urination?
ReplyDeleteCarry it to the grave in a jar. But expect a long line.
DeleteROFL !
DeleteI hope ten thousand people show up at his funeral with "God Hates Fred" signs.
ReplyDeleteI thought of that, and then decided that we are better than that. We are not Fred Phelps. Nor do we speak for a god I don't believe in. We might do best to just ignore him with a quiet, personal "good riddance" as the only ugliness we'll allow within ourselves over him ever again.
DeleteAnonymous10:34 AM
DeleteI totally agree with you.
Stooping down to the Phelps level would make us no better than a Phelps.
But I can imagine a Broadway cast singing and dancing to Ding Dong the Witch is Dead (males can be witches) in fabulous colors.
DeleteI knew Debbie Valgos. We were both newcomers to Arthur Capper Junior High as 9th graders in 1969. We danced the climactic dance at the prom together, Fuck Fred Phelps.
Deletehttp://theimmoralminority.blogspot.com/2014/03/fred-phelps-founder-of-god-hates-fags.html#comment-form
"My brother was struggling with his love for Debbie and his very real fear of hell. A lot of non-Christians might find that hard to believe. But if you grew up with your imagination open to Fred Phelps, believe me, hell was a concrete reality." The battle inside Fred Jr. would last until the following spring, but the war had been lost when he turned back from Indiana.
In late September, Debbie dropped out of high school and moved in with girlfriends at a house on Central Park Avenue. It was just a few blocks from the Washburn campus. "We went there a lot when we were out selling candy," says Mark. "That lasted into December, probably, because I remember being there when it was very cold and we were wearing winter coats."
But the pastor was relentless. And not only with the mattock. "He knew Fred Jr. was still seeing Debbie, and he hit heavy, heavy on him from the Bible. From things they said, I think my brother and Debbie had probably become lovers at some time in the relationship, and I'm sure Fred Jr. felt guilty about that.
"So, he was vulnerable to my father's framing of the situation as 'Debbie the Whore...the Agent of Satan sent to lure him into temptation and directly down into the gaping jaws of hell'." Says Mark: "He'd spend time with her, then try to avoid her. In addition to the guilt he was getting some pretty bad beatings. While Fred Jr. drifted in fear, Debbie fought to hand on to the man she cherished and the only person who'd ever cherished her. Margie Phelps remembers Debbie would wait for her brother outside after his classes on the Washburn campus. She would beg him to come back to her in Play-Misty-for-Me scenarios, where a mentally ill woman stalks her former lover. "If she did do that," says Luava, "it was in hurt and frustration that he would betray the love we all knew he felt." "And, besides, it always worked," Mark adds. "He always went back to her, at least while he was at Washburn." "I don't think he ever stopped loving her," agrees Luava. "He was just more scared of hell than he was of losing her."
Rainbow flags need to be flown all around the cemetery when he is buried. Taste of his own medicine.
ReplyDeleteI highly doubt they will disclose where his burial site is but a STELLAR idea, 9:31 AM!
DeleteActually the best thing to do is totally ignore the funeral as something irrelevant. The evil that is Fred Phelps is dying and that can only be a good thing.
DeleteShirley still remains with us so only time will tell whether there will be an improvement or not. I tend to think not.
Hey, I have an idea! When he dies, maybe his funeral should be attended by as many gays and gay-friendly straights as possible. There should be caravans of cars and buses making the pilgrimage to his funeral and helping his bereaved family cope with their loss. What about it?
ReplyDeleteKind and sweet of you Gryph, to say that you compassion for everybody and even Sarah. That shows you won't stoop to hate, just because others do it.
ReplyDeleteAs a christian, I also have a hard time with what Phelps did. These people don't express mercy to others, because they never knew mercy. They don't know the real Jesus, they created him to be what they wanted him to be. If they had known him, their actions would have been completely different.
No one should gloat over anyone's death. I think people who always had the advantage of strength and health and privilege (with followers and yes-men) are so fooled by their own strength, that it takes their own sickness and deathbed to finally realize they never had any control nor had any right to condemn others. It must be a serious time of re-adjustment and reflection in a person's mind when they are about to slip into that abyss, not knowing if there might be a God of love, who wishes that they repent and call on Him to take them with him to paradise in eternity.
There's this parable - it's about the vineyard workers harvesters) who get one penny for a day's work. Many worked a full day's hard work, and suddenly more arrived an hour before the sun went down, asking the keeper if they could work. He gave them work and at the end of the shift, all came together for their pay, and the newcomers got the same wage, a penny,, as though they worked all day, as those who worked all day. Of course, the guys who worked all day murmured; but the keeper told them to take what was agreed to, and go their way, and allow me to decide to do what I want with these others. So the last will be first, and the first last. For many would be called, but few chosen.
We're witnessing this church implode and probably will witness others like this too - hate doesn't succeed forever.
No man is an island, entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main. If a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe is the less, as well as if a promontory were, as well as if a manor of thy friends or of thine own were: any mans death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind, and therefore never send to know for whom the bells tolls; it tolls for thee.
ReplyDeleteI am surprised someone so full of hatred lived this long. I read how he beat the holy hell out of his kids and a number of them couldn't wait to leave home and did the minute they turned 18. He was a hateful, cruel, bitter old man and deserves whatever fate awaits him for all the evil he did in this world and the hate he inspired in his progeny or in many of them.
ReplyDeleteSome people have to have an enemy; their life is pointless without one. If no one willingly steps up to the plate and becomes their enemy, they have to designate one, and it’s often a person or persons they secretly admire.
ReplyDeleteYou could be right about the reason for Fred’s excommunication, but my first thought was that the remaining church members are shielding assets from hospitals and maybe Fred himself as his mind deteriorates from pain and drugs. Didn’t the church money come from Fred the lawyer rather than donations?
I agree 100% with the cynical side of you.
ReplyDeleteI have zero sympathy for him or any of his litigious seed.
He didn't actually influence anybody. The bigots who agree with him won't change anyway. They don't matter.
ReplyDeleteJohn Aravosis thinks that Fred Phelps may have been the most effective advocate for gay rights by exposing the hate of the religious right. http://americablog.com/2014/03/fred-god-hates-fgs-phelps-near-death.html
ReplyDeleteSome evangelicals think the same thing. In 2011, he was added to a 'please die' prayer list because they were worried Phelps was "an embarrassment to Bible believing Pro-Life and Pro-Family Christians."
Deletehttp://www.rightwingwatch.org/category/people/fred-phelps#sthash.hP9YqZJE.dpuf. In 2011, a group
Nothing demonstrates your devout Christianity like a 'please die' prayer list.
DeleteI can't really be sorry for his impending death. It's the common fate. I like the idea of showing up with rainbow flags at his funeral, but I certainly wouldn't spend any time or energy actually doing so. He's a small man who built a small church on hate; he's dying; the church will die: he's not worth it.
ReplyDeleteUnfortunately, the church probably won't die any tine soon. I believe his vicious daughter is in charge.
DeleteThat daddy that told his 4 year old daughter that the pro-choice folks were baby killers is the next Fred Phelps, or the visible one among many. We must remain vigilant against such ugliness, even with Phelps gone.
ReplyDeleteI am not sorry he is dying. Not one bit. The world will have more positive energy on it when this man is gone. I hope some of his hospice nurses are lesbian or gay or jewish. They will of course provide him with professional care...and if he is in pain he will have to let these people care for him. Oh the beautiful irony!!
ReplyDeleteFred is dying? Hmmm. Does that mean Fred was a fag and his god of hate is killing him? Now that is irony.
ReplyDeleteNah... his kids are attorneys. They wan to take over -- so a likely tax dodge.
ReplyDeleteI kind of feel like taking a crap, but I'll wait to see if Phelps dies first. Then I can shit on him and give him a flush. Maybe it will be a two flusher, he was a really big shit as these religious shits go.
ReplyDeleteThis hateful man's expression of his beliefs has been especially vile. But I wonder if the worst thing about him and his 'church' is that they've moved the goalposts on what passes as unacceptable.
ReplyDeleteWhat's the substantive difference between Phelps and, say, Franklin Graham, Lou Engle, Ralph Reed, Ted Cruz...most any GOP elected official, really?
This is the perfect time for Franklin Graham to make a statement that Fred Phelps' stance on homosexuality is better than Obama's and he admires Phelps' efforts to protect children from the gay agenda.
ReplyDeleteWe're waiting, FRANKLIN.
Delete@JohnFugelsang
ReplyDeleteFred Phelps is apparently on his death bed so this would be a good time to pray that God is actually a gay man.
1:43 PM - 16 Mar 2014
Good.
ReplyDeleteI have tremendous sympathy for Nathan Phelps because of my own experience.
ReplyDeleteEleven months ago yesterday, my mother died. I had not spoken to her in several years. She was mentally ill but refused to seek help, and had emotionally abused me my entire life, leaving scars that will never heal. Events of a few years ago finally led me to cutting off all contact completely, which gave me a sense of peace and self-worth I had never before felt.
When she died last year, I fell apart and had a difficult time understanding why her death had hit me so hard. A very wise friend of mine explained that I was NOT mourning a life and relationship that HAD been. Instead, I was mourning a life and relationship that would have, could have and SHOULD have been.
Once I understood exactly what it was I was grieving, it helped me to get through the process and not feel as though I was betraying myself the way she had done.
I believe Nathan is experiencing something similar and I know how painful it can be to feel so torn by emotion you feel guilty for experiencing. I wish him peace and the knowledge that he is a stronger and better person precisely because of what he has been through.
Well said and very touching.
DeleteAmen to that!
DeleteYou're not alone. Many of us have lived this.
DeletePeace and strength!
I hope he is rotting from the inside out in the most painful ways imaginable.
ReplyDeleteI have spent most of my life attempting to live by five words: Love, Understanding, Compassion, Forgiveness, Tolerance.
ReplyDeleteI have to say that this man will sorely try my attempts. The man is hateful. Deceitful. Despicable. Vicious. Cruel. And NOT a patriot despite his clams to the contrary.
How does one go about trying to use those five words for a man like that?
I'm not sure it is possible.
Couldn't happen to a more deserving guy. Too bad it's in a hospital where he'll be put on enough pain meds to make sure he doesn't suffer. He deserved to suffer.
ReplyDeleteLet me know when he passes. I'll put on a red dress and go out dancing.
I'm sure his excommunicated family is being kept from him while he is lucid so they can't communicate to the world that he recanted at the end and asked forgiveness.
Let them go to court and get an order allowing them to see their Father while he is still conscious.
I feel no lightness of heart at this news. Organized ignorance will continue when Phelps is gone, just as it did when that piece of dirt Falwell croaked too. It's all the same hate, just different degrees of up-front repugnance.
ReplyDeleteAs I've posted elsewhere, methinks ole Fred is going to be "on the express elevator, going to hell" post-death.
ReplyDelete(That's from "Aliens"btw.)
PMom_GS
That sentiment that he is still losing his dad means nothing. That man was a bastard and no one should grieve for that POS, even his family. When a man is a total waste of life, who the fuck cares when that waste finally dies. I say good riddance, you prick.
ReplyDeleteDoes anyone care to speculate at to whether or not Sarah will attend his funeral? Plenty of publicity to be had there, cameras and everything.
ReplyDeleteGreat Idea! She'll post a photo of herself in camo with flag shoes and use words like "First Amendment Warrior" Gee, ,maybe RAM is typing away while chomping on a sammich and some left over moose chili as we speak?
DeleteMany, many wonderful Gay folks make their living in health care. Phelps is in hospice. He will likely die in the company of those he professed to hate. I'm sure they will be kind to him.
ReplyDeleteTexasMel
Fred Phelps, typical gay-hating, faux-kkkristyun conservative.
ReplyDeleteIn a way I hate to see old Fred go.... in his own way he was the greatest champion to get Gay Rights into headlines, all the while exposing the hypocrisy and lies of the religious right. Fred Phelps sure helped me to see the light which resulted in shedding the religious guilt, lies, and hyprocity and becoming an atheist.
ReplyDeleteThis states it better than I ever could: http://evolequals.com/2014/03/16/a-gay-dads-requiem-on-the-death-of-fred-phelps/
All I wish is that he's shown as much compassion and love in death as he's shown the entire world in life. In other words, crickets chirping.
ReplyDeleteI'm sorry for his kids that escaped and changed their ways, THAT'S where my empathy and sympathy lie. You're a far better person than me (or should that be "I"?) Gryphen.
Not to worry, Gryphen. If lacking compassion for this dying sack of shit is your worst failing, you're doing just fine.
ReplyDeleteAny chance he can take Sarah and Ted with him?
ReplyDelete