To hear about Heath Ledger’s death yesterday evening was shocking, but to hear this morning that the Reverend Fred Phelps, keeper of the God Hates Fags website, announced that his anti-gay group would be picketing Ledger’s funeral because of his involvement in the Oscar-winning “Brokeback Mountain” was even more shocking.
I suppose it shouldn’t have been.
Phelps and his group from Kentucky’s Westboro Baptist Church have become infamous for their tasteless antics; first gaining infamy for the picketing of hate-crime victim Matthew Shepherd’s funeral. It is despicable enough that the group would picket a funeral, even if they strongly disagree with the deceased’s former lifestyle, but Phelps’ group has expanded their distasteful displays -- shouting obscenities and shaking hate-speech filled placards -- to events not even tenuously linked to issues of homosexuality: Funerals of fallen soldiers and the victims of last year’s Minnesota bridge collapse. Sure, some of those soldiers and Minnesotans may have been gay, lesbian or bisexual, but Phelps’ group is disrupting those funerals not because of the personal practices of the deceased, but because the group believes deaths of U.S. service persons in Iraq and the failure of the bridge are “punishment for the nation's tolerance of homosexuality.” Apparently those deaths had nothing to do with booby-traps and structural weaknesses. Go figure.
Now they want to disrupt the funeral of a man who played a gay man in a movie; a truly genre-busting and important film, but a movie nonetheless.
The link to the announcement about Ledger’s funeral is no longer working on Phelps’ site, but according to Perezhilton.com the group “will picket the decease[sic] Aussie actor's funeral because he is a pervert who promoted homosexuality by appearing as a gay man in Brokeback Mountain.” The only pervert I see here is Phelps. How can a man who calls himself a Christian minister lead his flock to disrupt one of the most important rites of the religion?
Heck, even President Bush, a conservative Christian who’s not such a big friend of the country’s gay constituency, can see that it is just plain wrong to cause such distress, having signed The Respect for America's Fallen Heroes Act which “bans protests within 300 feet of the entrance of a national cemetery and within 150 feet of a road into the cemetery.”
Ironically enough, I just read a piece by a contributor to “The Advocate” who said that he hopes Phelps keeps doing what he does best, because now that his group has expanded their list of targets to innocent victims of disasters and honorable soldiers, and not just gay victims of hate crimes, the more the public will be aware of the hate-mongering group and will turn against it. It seems in this case, with Ledger’s phalanx of fans from teens who loved him in “10 Things I Hate About You” to cinemaphiles who revered his work in “Monster’s Ball,” Phelps may be messing with the wrong cowboy.
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"Revenge is the Lord's."
Revenge for what? How has Heath Ledger behaved to incur Phelps' revenge? And, don't give me that tripe about Ledger's playing a gay cowboy. The man is an actor, simply doing his job. If Phelps didn't like the movie, no one held a gun to his head to see it. Sure, the Bible says that homosexuality is an abomination. But, that was a mandate for believers to exercise and practice, not a command to the world of unbelivers. Jesus never ordered His followers to go after the GLBT community to deliver His retribution. Jesus ordered us to preach the GOOD NEWS of His Coming and the Kingdom, and go and sin no more. In turning the other cheek, Jesus mandated that we be the offended, not prosecutable offenders.
Phelps makes a mockery of Christendom with these stupid stunts. Jesus never petulently stalked offending sinners to shame them for their impropriety, nor so outrageously protested the abominations openly that offended Him. Jesus even prayed in private, saying that those who make an open show of their religion are already rewarded with public spectacle. Whose example is Phelps following? Because this is not what Jesus would do to anyone.
Revenge is the Lord's. We must love and prey for our enemies and know that God prevails and judges fairly. Phelp's is causing pain and suffering to others and ironically, and thanks be to God, is also causing those he is "throwing stones at" to be more blessed. We should not repay evil with evil but together set a true Christian example. We should offer them (Phelps's army) water if they are thirsty and food if they are hungry, in doing this we shall heap burning coals of shame on their heads. Don't let evil conquer you, but conquer evil by doing good (Romans 12:17). I would not want to be in Phelps's shoes on judgement day! May we all learn to walk in love.
You are so right. Absolutely.
"We must love and prey for our enemies and know that God prevails and judges fairly."
'Prey' for our enemies?
The prevalence and judgement of God are sure regardless of our human intervention. What Phelps is doing to appointing himself God's judge, jury, and executioner in a matter that has nothing to do with him. God did not ordain any of us to persecute and derride sinners. These misguided Christian dominionists really need to read the Bible to learn what the real commission of Christ is and how the saints are treat sinners. The sinner is not an enemy on the Lord's battlefield to be vanquished, coverted to a draconian doctrine faithlessly based on dated traditions and dogma, and subsequently deployed as a weapon in the battle against satan and his armies. Christians are not the BORG to which resistence by the sinner is futile. A sinner is a soul to be won to Jesus with Christian love, patience, grace, and mercy.
"We should offer them (Phelps's army) water if they are thirsty and food if they are hungry, in doing this we shall heap burning coals of shame on their heads. Don't let evil conquer you, but conquer evil by doing good (Romans 12:17)."
No, we really need to encourage the Ledger Family to quickly secure a restraining order against the Phelps borg now. It's time we put a cork in this shameful embarrassment to Christendom. We've placated and cajoled this pinhead long enough, too often and most unfortunately to our own consternation. If this intrusive, ignorant, overbearing rascal has to pay his freight through enough legal twists and turns, replete with time in the gray bar inn, his irrelvant 'ministry' will soon go defunct. Phelps is the kind of weed the saints need to starve out of the Lord's vineyard.
The Phelps family is a abomination. Absolutely the worst thing that ever happened to Christianity. When you see them protest at a soldiers funeral, "because they died, due to the gay sinners in our country" you will understand that they are hateful nasty people. I have seen them protesting. They had kids holding up the most disgusting signs of stick figures having gay sex. Would you let your child do this? Would you teach your child to hate like this? Jesus was a man of peace and love. What is the verse about "don't pick the speck from another mans eye until you pull the log from your own"? Only God will be our final judge. Let's leave it to him. Maybe we should pray for those who don't choose the right path, instead of casting stones at them. They are only making no believers run further way. You draw more flies with honey than vinegar.
I don't know who he is to think that he is able to judge people for things they do, isn't that the Lord's job, how can he put a man down at his own funeral, and expect to gain the Lord's love.
I think that Heath Ledger was a beatiful person, and that he will enter the Pearly Gates before Reverend Fred Phelps.
Heath did nothing wrong in my eyes.
We will all be judged when the time comes.
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