FRED PHELPS IS THAT NUT WHO SPENDS ALL HIS TIME HARRASSING GAY people. Finally, some folks on the far right said enough and sent Fred and his idiotic followers packing.
Phelps tried to invade the conservative, bible-belting town of Sand Springs, Oklahoma to harrass 17-year old Michael Shackelford and his fellow evangelical parishioners.
Shackelford was highlighted in a recent Washington Post article, one in a four part series by Anne Hull. Her follow up piece on Shackelford becoming a poster child for Fred Phelps’ hate campaign is here.
I remembered one other high profile exchange between Fred Phelps and the wry-witted and brilliant former Republican Senator of Wyoming, Alan Simpson.
Here is the story as written up by the Washington Post‘s Al Kamen some time ago.
Former Senator Alan Simpson (R-Wyo.) has come under fire for supporting gay rights. The famously anti-gay Westboro Baptist Church in Topeka, Kan., recently picketed the Wyoming statehouse in Cheyenne, in part because Simpson is honorary chairman of the Republican Unity Coalition and signed the group’s “Cody Statement” for tolerance.
In a news release, the WBC said the idea was “to picket the funeral of [gay]-enabler Alan Simpson,” calling the Cody Statement “a covenant with death and an agreement with hell.” In addition, it blasted “Simpson’s signature with out-of-the-closet . . . Michael Huffington’s,” a reference to the former GOP congressman and Senate candidate from California and the ex- of former California Democratic gubernatorial candidate Arianna Huffington.
WBC pastor Fred W. Phelps asked the Cody City Council for permission to erect a monument in Cheyene with the biblical admonition against homosexuality on it.
Simpson, apparently not having changed much since leaving Washington, wrote Phelps a response.
“I just wanted to alert you to the fact that some dizzy-ass is sending out mailings and e-mails from the Westboro Baptist Church — and using your name!” Simpson said in his letter. “I’m certain that you would not want this to continue or some less-alert citizen might think that you, yourself had done it.
We know that is surely not the case, because you are a God-fearing Christian person filled to the brim with forbearance, tolerance and love — and this other goofy homophobe nut must be someone totally opposite.”
“Quite Sincerely, Al Simpson.”
Sand Springs, Oklahoma is just west of Tulsa, and Bartlesville where my family is from, is just north.
It’s nice to see Oklahomans — where they are pro-gay or have problems with it — defending their own from disturbed people like Fred Phelps.
— Steve Clemons
