Pessimistic Politics: My Visit with Fred Phelps

Yes, Jack Chick may be a nuisance. Maybe he has an imperfect grasp of reality and, even worse, makes it easier for other people to be nuisances. Maybe he rapes sheep.

I’m all about forgiving just about anything so long as you do it quietly and in the privacy of your own home, but it’s hard to ignore the people who go out of their way to bother you. Jack Chick is easily one of the five most irritating people on the planet.

And yet, he is not #1…

That honor goes to Fred Phelps of Topeka, Kansas, who I have had the privilege of being personally annoyed by because of my proximity to him. If you’ve never heard of Fred Phelps, you need to read this.

There will be those of you who can’t possibly understand how someone could be more irritating that Jack T. Chick, the guy this website devotes an inordinate amount of space to deriding. For that reason, I’m going to do a simple compare and contrast:

• When asked the question “Do you hate homosexuals?” Chick’s response is “I feel exactly the opposite. I love homosexuals so much I want to save them from the fiery hell they are headed towards.” Skewed logic, but basically reasonable. Compare that to Fred Phelp’s response, “Yes. The Bible is a very hateful book. The Lord hates faggots, and so I must hate them. It would be a sin to pray for their salvation.”

• Standard Chick tract: Guy breaks one of God’s rules, Chick informs guy that he just broke a rule, guy repents. Live happily ever after. Examples of actual signs carried by members of Phelp’s church: “Fags die, God laughs,” “Thank God for dead Soldiers,” “You’re going to hell.”

• Chick’s enemies: several score websites such as this one, sponsored by people who are mildly irritated at having comic books thrown in our faces. Phelp’s enemies: 16,000 bikers who have formed an elite society called the Patriot Guard Riders solely for the purpose of following Phelps around the country and staging counter-protests.

• Chick’s website: www.chick.com. Phelp’s website: www.godhatesfags.com.

I’m not sure how many more bullets I can do, but this is enough. Phelps is the founder of Westboro Baptist Church, a tiny little church in downtown Topeka with nearly 100 members, most of them related to him. Together, they go around the country protesting in public places, most notably at the funerals of soldiers killed in Iraq, because they believe that the soldiers’ deaths are the result of God cursing America for condoning homosexuality.

Even Chris thought this guy was some sort of urban legend when I first told him, but I used to live in Kansas and I have had personal interactions with sign-carrying zealots. It’s not fun, and it’s certainly not funny.

Nevertheless, I wasn’t about to make Chris, and the millions of loyal readers here at Pocky Box, take my word for it. Something this sadistic, you almost have to see to believe.

So I took it upon myself, as the only one to point out this evil emperor rising up out of Chick’s comparatively innocuous shadow, to go get some proof. This was not the major undertaking you might expect, since I happened to be headed for Kansas anyway, and I usually spent the evenings in Topeka.

At the same time, this proved to be quite an ordeal. My first hope was to find some picketers walking around outside the bars and/or restaurants, as I have seen them do when they don’t actually have a pressing G.I. funeral to attend. Unfortunately (or perhaps fortunately), they did not seem to be out in force that particular day. Maybe they were all inside masturbating in their own feces, or something.

Not to be dissuaded so easily, I formulated a plan to hack into their website and discover the location of their secret lair. This, too, turned out to be simpler than expected, as the website readily invites you to attend weekly meetings at 3701 W. 12th St. in Topeka, Ks. Since I am so lucky that Topeka is my old stomping ground, I knew precisely where to find West 12th St. without even needing to refer to a map.

Now begins the quest part. To give you some background, Wanamaker Road in Topeka is just like Monroe Street in Toledo, is just like Glacier Road in Peoria, is just like millions of other streets in millions of other cities. It has a Best Buy, a Barnes and Nobles, a mall, a Red Lobster, an Olive Garden and an Applebee’s in just about that order. Seriously, there is a road like that in every town.

I never paid much attention to the side streets, expect for the few times I went to bars in Topeka, so I was quite disturbed to be flying by reading the signs: 16… 15… 14… 13… 11… 10… 9 HEY WHAT THE HECK WHERE’S TWELVTH!?!

I was momentarily fearful that Westboro Baptist lay on the fringes of its own dimension, which only occasionally crossed over into ours. This would explain how Westboro Baptist seems to adhere to its own logic that at times completely contradicts the logic of the known universe. And yet, I had to try.

I’m still not convinced it wasn’t. I had to drive about a mile back, zigzagging from Eleventh to Thirteenth Street in a desperate attempt to find Twelfth. Finally, I found what appeared to be the wrong end of a one way street (which pretty much sums up Phelp’s entire movement). I had to go back even further to find a way inside.

I’m still not sure how anybody is supposed to drive up to the church, and I’m pretty sure that’s intentional. Still, I did the only sensible thing, which was to park in somebody else’s driveway and sneak up to the church to peer over the fence.

Let me tell you, that church is heavily fortified. A great banner over the church roof lists the name of the website. An American flag in the yard is being flown half mast and upside-down, a symbol for a state of emergency our nation has, fortunately, never had to resort to. The flag pole is enclosed in a barbed wire fence, and the yard itself is a giant sand pit with a thick wooden fence taller than I am going all the way around it. Then, as if to prove the point, thorny bushes were planted all along the outside of the fence as though to keep people from even peering into the yard.

Voyeurism is about as close as I got to Phelp’s church. It’s easy to understand why he would do all this, because there have probably been more than a few counter protests, or even people like myself intent on ripping the flag down. A tiny sign outside the fence announced that this was, in fact, the Westboro Baptist church, but had no other information on it.

There was a door, but I am ashamed to admit I didn’t get close to it. I couldn’t tell you whether it was locked or not, or even if they used a bolt, mostly because I was afraid it wasn’t. The whole place had an unholy stink about it that repelled anybody with the least amount of sanity. I had never experienced something just like it, but it was as though that feeling of “wrongness” that follows most Christians around was concentrated there, and I couldn’t wait to get out.

I snapped a couple photos with my disposable camera and got the heck out of the neighborhood, before anyone noticed me sneaking around. I also couldn’t help but notice that the street was utterly deserted, even of stray cats and dogs, and I saw no people the entire time I was in the vicinity of that church. It was as though nature itself repelled it.

On the other hand…

You know, it’s not my nature to do this, but you have to give Phelps a hand in at least some regard. It’s hard to hate most Christians because their views don’t make sense, the awful truth is that the world would probably be a much better place if everybody could abide by these laws of morality.

The reason I hate most Christians is because of their hypocrisy, and more than anything their inconsistency. Most are all too willing to tell you that it’s a sin to have sex before marriage, all while cheating on their spouse. Many will say that believing in Jesus is the only way to get into heaven, but that thing about not working on Sunday is outdated and ought not to be taken literally.

That’s why most Christians are so repellent, not because they’re wrong, but because they’re wishy-washy. The Bible may say to hate homosexuals, but the very same book says to never touch the skin of a pig (football), not to wear clothing made of two different kinds of fabric (50% cotton) and that it’s okay to rape virgins, so long as you pay their parents for the honor.

You can’t pin any of this on Phelps.

Phelps is one man who read the whole Bible and followed it through to its conclusions. He has full moral superiority to tell any other Christian that they are in fact going to hell, because they are not doing everything just right. And really, he hasn’t harmed a single person, he’s just a bit noisy.

You can’t pin anything on Phelps. One of the biggest reason’s I’m not a Christian is because it’s a black and white issue, and if you claim to be a shade of grey your really just dead wrong. Phelps is on the side of the Bible and he’s proud of it, and he'll stick to all of his beliefs no matter what else happens.