LGBTQ+ Rights and America

@if you protest his family, you will be like him

That might - might - hold true if he was the only member of his family that was politically active. But he wasn't; WBC is a family business which runs it's protests as a family unit. It now seems that there's been a palace coup too. His daughter Shirley is just as bugnuts insane as he is. They're not "victims". If you ask for some kind of "dignity for the family", then you're asking for the a courtesy they never extended to anyone else.

Another, rather simpler difference, is that those who protest his funeral - if they do - are likely to be those who fight hatred rather than spread it. Fred Phelps did what he did because he hated, in pursuit of a vicious and reactionary ideology, anyone who wasn't part of the tiny Elect of saved people he thought would join him in Heaven while the rest of us burned eternally. He - with the collusion of his family - made a great many people's lives a misery. Those people can, as far as I'm concerned, get even any (legal) way they want.

I'm not shocked. I'm just disappointed at what seems to be mindless good-taste being extended to someone who doesn't deserve it.

edited 16th Mar '14 5:36:51 PM by Achaemenid

Schild und Schwert der Partei

It is easy and gratifying to hate a person. It is more important to hate an idea.

And this is the key point. We won. He provided a direct, abject lesson in what happens to your life when you build it around hate - it ends in misery and solitude. A passing twinge of pity is all he will get from me. I wouldn't suggest picketing his funeral because I wouldn't suggest even learning where it is, or putting his eulogy in the paper. Let him pass into history alone.

He doesn't deserve to have power over anyone's lives anymore.

Share it so that people can get into this conversation, 'cause we're not the only ones who think like this.

"They're not "victims". If you ask for some kind of "dignity for the family", then you're asking for the a courtesy they never extended to anyone else."

THATS THE POINT. We're not even asking for anything anyway. We're pointing out by not taking action you're better than them. by doing a protest your lowering yourselves to the same level.

YES he's a hateful little shit. but you go and pay evil unto evil and you're not much better.

By taking actions against him you're just playing into their plans. they wanted angry responses. you're better served not doing anything.

edited 16th Mar '14 5:43:43 PM by Joesolo

I'm baaaaaaack

Frankly I don't care if his family are as bad as he is. The man is dead and his family is going to be understandably upset by this. You can go back to hating them and fighting them in whatever way you want afterwards but can't you give them one minute of peace to mourn the person they care about? Are we really that petty and driven by revenge that we're just going to be blatant hypocrites about this?

Also in my mind they are victims if you protest his funeral. They were denied the ability to peacefully say goodbye to a person that they loved. I don't care if the reason is different, the net effect of the action is the exact same thing and that makes it wrong in my mind.

edit: Look, the man is dead. His family might continue on his work but, if you don't protest, there's a chance, however slim, that they will learn from this that their enemies are better. It's unlikely but it could spur them to change their opinion. Don't you think that chance is worth taking so no one else ever has to have their funeral protested?

That's another thing. The WBC likes it when people react to them. It gives them attention. They intentionally try to provoke a reaction from people. This is probably what they want to happen.

edited 16th Mar '14 5:47:49 PM by Kostya

Maybe some of us don't feel like we have to be much better. Just better is enough. Besides, we're used to being judged and hated no matter what we do. A little extra judgement, a little extra hate won't change a thing.

edited 16th Mar '14 5:51:53 PM by Morgikit

Okay then. I don't really have anything else to add. Ultimately the decision in how to react to this is up to the individual. I just wanted to bring up some things worth considering.

edited 16th Mar '14 5:52:32 PM by Kostya

Alright then, by all means feed those that hate you by doing exactly what they want.

George Takei for one would disagree with you.

edited 16th Mar '14 5:53:09 PM by Joesolo

I'm baaaaaaack

I... I just can't bring myself to go against George Takei. ;_;

1. George Takei is not the king of the LGBT community. We are allowed to disagree with him.

2. I'm not even planning on going to the damn funeral. Anyone who judges me is judging me for something I'm thinking about doing. And that's just a waste of energy.

3. I used to want haters to like me, but now I can't be bothered to please them.

edited 16th Mar '14 6:08:21 PM by Morgikit

"That's another thing. The WBC likes it when people react to them. It gives them attention. They intentionally try to provoke a reaction from people. This is probably what they want to happen."

Yes. To put it in internet terms, they're trolls. Don't feed the trolls.

Ok, fair points. It would be better to just let them fade away and be forgotten.

I still have to wonder why he was excommunicated. I'm not getting good reasons from what i can see...

^ No one outside the WBC and him knows. Any reasons that are being offered are pure speculation and should be treated as such. It's likely that no one outside the WBC members ever will know.

...if you don’t love you’re dead, and if you do, they’ll kill you for it.

Let's get a few things straight - unless the LGBTQ community starts hounding the WBC to suicide and committing thinly disguised legal fraud, they are not worse or anywhere near as bad as the WBC. I don't think anyone should picket but I'm not going to go around making false equivalencies.

Another thing - his family excommunicated him. It's likely that no one will show up to his funeral, period. (I would find this fitting and instructive.)

Share it so that people can get into this conversation, 'cause we're not the only ones who think like this.

Really Franklin Graham? Really?

I now go by Graf von Tirol.

Wow. A right-wing American saying America should be more like Russia. What has the world come to?

edited 17th Mar '14 5:25:18 PM by Elfive

My own take isn't that by protesting Fred Phelps funeral you become like him but that by doing so you give him more attention and significance than he deserves.

Trump delenda est

It's not the first time someone's expressed admiration for Putin on the American right.

Total hearsay (that is, no idea if this is Poe's Law), but i found this◊ elsewhere.

As for the funeral protests, if you think they were wrong to do it, because they disrupted a grieving families moment, and then do the same thing, your in the wrong, it doesn't matter if you have different reasons for doing it, because the effect is the same.

People can have perfectly justifiable motives and still do morally wrong things. If you don't care about having the high ground that's fine but don't pretend that you do when you do the same thing as the person you're criticizing.

And that's all I want to say about that.

edited 19th Mar '14 1:30:50 PM by KBSL

Protesting funerals is a dick move, that doesn't really achieve anything.

Not unless one of the protesters is a necromancer, anyway.

Students removed from yearbook for being gay.

Who was it complaining about how bass-ackwards Arkansas is? More data points to support that claim, unfortunately.

That’s the epitome of privilege right there, not considering armed nazis a threat to your life. - Silasw

That's got to be worthy of a First Amendment lawsuit.

"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"

what is apparently the content of the deleted bio has been posted in the comments. Prepare yourself with brain bleach and a cushioned hard object to smack your head against before reading any other comments though - many support the school. Some use aids as a reasoning (eye twitches)

My name is Addy. Please call me that instead of my username.

Very little about the stupidity of homophobes could shock me at this point.

I think that the only even vaguely rational (as in, not blatantly homophobic) argument presented in the original article was the fear that publishing an account of a gay student's experience might make him the victim of hate crimes or persecution. Still, that's just a backwards way of saying, "Society thinks you're terrible and we don't want to rock the boat."

edited 20th Mar '14 9:02:45 AM by Fighteer

"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"