In Defense of The Westboro Baptist Church
A lot of times I see my fellow freethinkers arguing against Fred Phelps and his wacky Westboro Baptist Church. All I can do is laugh. I mean really, no one even takes that crazy bunch seriously so why bother arguing against them? Oh no, they picket funerals and yell, “God hates fags.” So what? People just laugh at them. They have become a parody of Fundamental Christianity. They are the joke!
The thing is that I like Phelps and the gang. While the mainstream media sees them as “too religious,” I see them as not religious enough. They remind me that as wacky as these guys are, they still don’t follow the worst of the Bible. While they may picket funerals, they aren’t out there stoning people to death for working on the Sabbath. Nor are they stoning gay people, adulterers, and heretics. In fact, the Westboro clan doesn’t stone anyone. What kind of extremist of the extreme are they if they don’t stone a single person or even advocate that kind of thing. The fact is these guys are wusses.
If we can’t even count on Fred Phelps to take the Bible absolutely literally, who can we count on? Could you imagine if Phelps and friends really did take the Bible as literally as the mainstream media made it out that they do? Wow, they would be in prison by now. The thing is that the Religious Right don’t hate Phelps for distorting the Bible, they hate him because he points out that they are distorting the Bible too. The more the Phelps family are out there protesting funerals and getting news coverage the more it makes the Religious Right look stupid. Liberals and moderates don’t see a difference between Phelps and Dobson while the Religious Right sees Phelps as how they might be if they really took things to the next level. So Phelps and friends are a win/win as far as I am concerned.
The way I see it, The Westboro Baptist Church are harmless and yet at the same time they also are great to have around because as wacky as they are, they are no wackier than the Religious Right or even the mainstream Christians. If Christians are going to insist that no one be critical of their wacky beliefs, than how can they also be so critical of the Westboro Baptists? Don’t they have the right to believe whatever they like too? Of course they do, but having the right to believe something doesn’t mean that someone ought to believe that thing. And the fact is that the Westboro Baptists have just as much, if not more Biblical backing as the mainstream and Religious Right. So as long as the Westboro Baptist Church don’t get much bigger than the Phelps family, they don’t start stoning people, and aren’t in a position to change any laws I say keep them around for a bit just as an example of some still wussy but harder core Christianity than the Fundamentalists.
Filed under: Religion
