Here's 2 of Fred Phelps' favorite games: 1: "Cafeteria Christianity". Fred wants the "anti-homosexual" verses of Leviticus applied to everyone as justification to harass and murder gay people, claiming it's God's will and word, but if you tell Fred to stop eating catfish, shrimp, pork chops, and bacon cheeseburgers because the same book forbids eating those because they're "unclean" or to stop shaving his face, cutting his hair, or stop wearing multi-fabric clothes for the same reasons that they're specified as forbidden activities in Leviticus, he'll accuse you of being the "cafeteria Christian" saying we're the ones picking and choosing. 2: "Projected Prejudice". Fred goes on and on (like the Energizer Bunny's evil twin brother) about how gays are supposedly destroying the fabric of society and calling for our gay heads on platters using Leviticus as justification, but when someone challenges his assuptions or people stage a counterprotest of his assinine antyi-gay pickets, Fred accuses that person or group of persons of being prejudiced against him. Since when did comabtting bigots become bigotry? WOW! I didn't know that fighting back against bigots, racists, and homphobes, whether violently or non-violently (and I only advocate violence if it's to defend yourself and you have no other way to react), constituted an act of prejudice. Of course, in the 50's and 60's, black people in the south were accused of racism simply because they wanted to eat at the same lunch counter as whites and to be able to vote. Now, it's gays being accused of heterophobia (hating or fearing staright people) by the likes of Fred Phelps for demanding hate crime laws and an end to homphobia. If Fred Phelps and other bigoted honkey crackers like him weren't so goddamed homophobic and celebratory when gays are murdered, then there would be no need for hate crime laws. He claims that "freedom of thought' is violated with HCL's. Utter felgercarb! One's frame of mind is already taken into account when charged with serious crimes like assault or murder. There's a difference between premeditated murder and negligent homocide. Premeditated murder means you planned to kill the person in question, like stalking the victim to their home. Running a red light and killing someone in a car that had the green light would be negligent homocide because there was not a pre-existing thought to kill someone. So yes, the frame of mind, one's thoughts or attitudes, are already used to determine the criminal charge and subsequently, the punishment. So therefore, hate crime laws DO NOT VIOLATE one's "freedom of thought", as it's the intentional action, not the thoughts, that violate the law.
I don't know If god hates gay people or not, nor do I care. But to step into killing people because its "God's Will" is just plain stupid. for one thing the bible wasn't writen by god and besides that if god is against gay people they will have to face up to that on Judgement day. I think that god would rather see us working together cohesivly and will deal with people outside his ideals on his own terms.
No Chaos, I'm not Fred Phelps, and I am eternally thankful to God that I am not related to Fred Phelps. With the "projected prejudice" statement I made, I'm basically saying that it sucks when a minority group fights for its rights and gets accused of prejudice by the majority, because the majority feels threatened. Such as the civil rights movement in the 60's when black people were accused by the KKK of being racist against whites and wanting black supremacy. Sexist men accused women of being anti-male and anti-establishment for wanting to vote. Adolf Hitler accused Jews of being "zionist" which was essentially an accusation of Jewish supremacy against other races and cultures. Currently, it's gay people fighting for equal rights, like being able to marry their lovers, being accused of "gay supremacy" or outright heterophobia by homophobes like Fred Phelps and Pat Robertson. Maybe straight white men need to be the object of prejudice just to know what it has been like for everyone else because prejudice rarely survives experience. SWM's have never experienced true racism or dscrimination because there's no really derogatory or imflammatory term to describe straight white men. They've never had to worry about black people burning crosses in their front yards or castrating and lynching them in the town square for being white or dragging them behind a truck down a gravel road at 80 miles an hour for the same reason. Nor have they ever had to fear that gay men would pistol whip and crucify them on a buckboard fence in a snowstorm because they were heterosexual. They also have not had to worry about being arrested for trying to vote.
I think it's something more like "project attention-whores cafeteria." They love attention, and they know how to get it.
