Fred Phelps - Hate Mongerer

I have been reading recently about a man named Fred Phelps. Basically, one could call him the anti-christ, except that would indicate power along with utter evil. Phelps, no, he is just evil, and deserving of contempt. He is a hate-mongeror, who has targeted groups as diverse as Sweden, Army Veterans, homosexuals, and even victims of the Minneapolis I-35W bridge collapse.

Ironically, he started out good, as many people do, as a lawyer fighting Jim Crow laws. However, he has become fanatical in his homophobia, attacking everyone who is even tolerant, denouncing everyone.

He hates Sweden, and has said the heavy Swedish losses in the 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake, initially overestimated to be near 20,000, were "God's punishment of Sweden for the promotion of homosexuality".

He created www.godhatesireland.com, (which thankfully is no longer online) to "expose Ireland as the Emerald (now Pink) Isle of the Sodomite Damned, –saturated with fags and dykes at every level of society and government."

He supported Saddam Hussein, although later declared that Hussein was in Hell now.

He worst crimes in my oppinion, are picketing funerals of US Soldiers. He and his bastard "church" go to funerals, citing freedom of speech, and then yell and taunt the mourners.

Now, to an anarchist, this solution is simple. If he came to a funeral of someone in my family, and yell at me that that person was in Hell, along with other things, I'd simply show he was wrong by letting him see Hell for himself. However, as a rational person, I have to ask myself, despite the fact that he would deserve it, killing him, or them, wouldn't be worth giving up the rest of my life. And, sadly, that is what would happen, because the Law doesn't recognize killing as different than murder except in self-defense cases.

What really makes me happy though, is one of the events Phelps was picketing more recently. Students at Shawnee Mission East High School in Prarie Village, Kansas, voted for Matthew Pope as their homecoming king last year. Last Friday, Pope returned for a ceremoney, and Phelps, along with several members of his "congregation" showed up to picket. However, the students fought back, with a massive counter-protest over over 450 people. Thank God for highschoolers, right? Here is a video of the Counter-Protest, from the blog Classically Liberal: