Church Protests Outside Wrong Way Crash Funerals

[CC]

Source: BALTIMORE (AP)

The memorial service for the five members of a Parkville family killed by a wrong-way truck in an Ohio highway accident includes some uninvited guests outside.

Three members of the Kansas-based Westboro Baptist Church, known for protests at military funerals, are demonstrating about a block from St. Luke Evangelical Lutheran Church, the site of the service.

The demonstrators say the deaths are God's retribution against the community for a recent $11 million jury award against the Kansas group. A federal jury in Baltimore made the award in October to Albert Snyder, of York, Pa., who sued after the group protested his son's military funeral in Maryland.

Demonstrator Fred Phelps says the community is going to "pay the price" for persecuting his group for preaching the word of God.
*snip*

Read more: http://wjz.com/local/ohio.drunk.driving.2.625238.html

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I hope this family sues them too. They find find any excuse to protest anyones funeral.

[Bicoastal]

1. You know, at this point, that church fails to shock me...

...and what are they without their shock value? Nothing!

[CC]

2. I wonder sometimes if they are trying to see how low

they can go. They don't so much shock me as cause extreme anger. Then again they have caused that anger since I first heard of them in 1998.

[atreides1]

3. I guess God must be a coward then

He got some drunk truck driver to do his dirty work for him, but then again God has a history of getting others to do his killing!!!

No wonder the Phelps family cares so much for their God, he's just like them too chickenshit to do his own dirty work!

[ladywnch]

4. if there really is a god how come he does not strike down this kind of scum

the claims they act in god's name????? If he exists and is all powerful how can he allow these charlatans and scum to continue to preach on his behalf?

[MindPilot]

7. one can only conclude that either god is sadistic beyond imagination or non-existent

I go with the latter.

I guess the third possibility is that Fred Phelps is just full-blown batshit crazy and god doesn't give a rat's ass.

[frog92969]

10. I'll take door number three.

[liberalhistorian]

9. Well, as a Christian myself, I can tell you that

theologically, the doctrine of free will applies. That is, we are given free will, we are not controlled robotically. What we do with that free will is up to us. I can assure you that the God I know would not only not approve of the mofo who did this, but would have special contempt for those scum like Phelps who would use his name in such a horrid way and who would cause even more pain and suffering to the family.

[ladywnch]

13. I understand what you are saying about free will and all but

I still don't understand how a (supposedly) loving god can stand by and allow these cretins (Phelps, Dobson, Falwell (dead I know), all mega-church pastors, etc) to continue to spew such hatred and evil using god as some kind of kevlar cover and just sit back and do nothing. where is god's wrath at all of this? where is 'his' vengeance against this? how can he allow them to be inflicted upon his 'children'? All the false 'christians' who may soon end up running this country that we may be forced to comply with else we all get locked up as unAmerican or unpatriotic or whatever other BS they accuse all who chose to think instead of follow them.

I'm not really trying to be an a**hole here, I just really don't understand any of this. I used to consider myself an agnostic but over the last 8 years I now pretty much consider myself an atheist. That being said, I'm still trying to understand.

[joeglow3]

18. I wonder sometimes too

Most people believe that what we feel here (suffering, love, companionship, etc.) are weak (almost nonexistent) feelings when compared to what you feel in either the presence, or lack thereof, of God. Thus, is it possible that the suffering we “think” were are feeling are really insignificant when compared to that which we will feel in the afterlife.

That is the problem with faith. Very little, if any, can be proved and we can’t begin to assume we can reach our answers.

[ladywnch]

22. I'm sorry, I don't see how this addresses my question.

[Hekate]

33. It gets a lot better if you posit a universe with multiple gods. The god of the Phelps is hideous...

Jesus is more of a bodhisattva, if you read his parables. His god is a loving father.

However, there are all kinds of fathers in this world, including evil and abusive and outright insane ones. Guess which one the Phelpses have aligned themselves with?

It helps me to think of it that way. And I try to support Christian groups like Sojourners who are willing to call out the extremists who pervert the message of their loving god.

Hekate

[superconnected]

15. Maybe he's a tolerant God.

[panzerfaust]

27. No, HE HISOWNSELF says that HE is a JEALOUS God

Exodus 34:14 "For thou shalt worship no other god: for the LORD, whose name is Jealous, is a jealous God"

HE also, in His best seller 'The Bible' shows Hisself as intolerant, murderous, xenophobic ...

Interestingly, by this revelation in Exodus, by this very word of God Hisself confirms the existence of other, hopefully less Jealous, Gods. Perhaps of Gods less likely to kill innocents to show favor for Baptists.

[superconnected]

35. Revelations is Johns I had a dream speech.

It's supposed to be about his dream about the fall of Rome. Which he drempt and believed would happen in the future. The whole damien, 666 and armageddon stuff is the new hollywood take on it, most isn't in revelations. Anything that is, is typically a short sentence in the fall of rome speech.

But why would revelations (dream) or any of the new testaments turn the other cheek policys want to be considered by you when you could deal with the stuff from 6000 years ago(or whenever the heck it was written) instead of 2000.

Either way a bible class would teach you that it's not Gods word but mans words. The idea is it's inspired by God and not necessarily literally true - as it's turned out that a whole lot of it the Catholic Church helped make up - the Christmas story, etc.

[harun]

34. Because He is more patient than us, and thanks for that because

we have all had a "strike down" moment or two in our lives as well.

[toadzilla]

5. just afew minutes from me, I should swing by and throw smelly things at them on my way home.

[MindPilot]

8. like bullets?

Unfortunately you are probably not going to be able to make them smell any worse than they already do.

I would like to see a pickup truck full of guys with paint ball guns drive by and open up on them every time they appear.

[MindPilot]

6. So god offs some innocents in a fiery crash because he didn't like the outcome of a lawsuit?

That's out there even for the wackiest of the wackos.

Seems like the all-knowing omnipotent creator of the universe could approach the issue a little more directly.

[panzerfaust]

28. It is not given to man to know the Mind of God

... but to God to know the Mind of man.

God offs 5 on the freeway because Baptists lost in a lawsuit?

That is nothing to the 275,000 he slew on Boxing Day (the day after Christ's Mass) in 2004 - as ,according to many prominent Christer's, a warning to God's (currently) Chosen People of the result of the evil of their ways.

[bleedinglib]

11. I'm begining to

believe that Pat Robertson is the leader of this group????

[MilesColtrane]

12. Demonstrator Fred "Phelps says the community is going to "pay the price" for persecuting his group"

A direct terrorist threat.

If we can't close down Gitmo, at least use it for real terrorists like this guy.

[CatholicEdHead]

23. Yep, sue as many people to get money to protest ad nasum

[MadMaddie]

24. You have hit on something here...groups like these people

are as dangerous to the United States as the Taliban, Terry Nichols and company-OK bombing...

This administration is intentionally ignoring these religious Christian internal threats.

That is a terroristic threat and the FBI should be investigating.

[superconnected]

14. Proof that we need gov paid mental eval and institutes to keep the

insane in.

Having them on the streets is a pariah for everyone.

[pattmarty]

16. I think Fred Phelps needs to get shot by that Philadelphia cop.

Hey, shoot the mother fucker in the ass so he won't have to worry about anything else going up there.

[rAVES]

17. Can we nuke the phelps yet?

[Faygo Kid]

19. Small children and their mother. I'm not violent, but give me five minutes with any of the Phelps.

I do hope they sue the family, but the tragedy what's left of this family has gone through is beyond comprehension, and money isn't enough to compensate them for the Phelps. I know all the arguments against it, but I want to cold cock the fucker as hard as I can.

[brentspeak]

20. It's not often that I feel nauseous simply by reading a news article

but this is one of those few times.

A mixture of nauseousness and wanting to magically send my hand through my computer monitor to beat the living crap out of the Phelps family.

[maddogesq]

21. I was a victim of a wrong-way crash five years ago.

It was a well publicized case where a drunk college kid coming from a frat recruitment party had gotten on 1-69 at Marshall Michigan going south in the northbound lane. He struck my van, killing my friend and band mate, and injurying me. When I see stuff like this, I wonder why we haven't yet taxed religous groups who get political. These people are freaks!

[GoddessOfGuinness]

25. Please, somebody build an ark for these fuckers...

put them on it, and set it afloat in the Bermuda Triangle.

[sakabatou]

26. To the WBC

[Rebellious Republican]

29. The way I see it, these guys should be left alone and get lots of

media coverage. Because they really show just how whacked out religion can be. Seems to me the religious right has been a major contributor to the GOP, both in fund raising and votes. Let americans see them, it has to have a psychological effect. Let them continue to piss off everyone, works for me. Fuckin right, these guys only help our cause.

:think:

[Vogon_Glory]

30. Like An Ugly Wart, Westboro Baptist

Like a very ugly wart, Westboro Baptist is going to find itself associated with the worst aspects of the Religious Right, whether the Religious Right's senior Holy Joes and Praying Janies like it or not. Westboro Baptist's antics ought to have some interesting consequences this November.

[Javaman]

31. I have an idea for a new business...

I call it "FAUX FUNERALS". It will cater to those high profile funerals that attract these protest nuts.

You have the real funeral in one spot, but then have the "faux funeral" in another.

in hopes that these dolts protest the wrong funeral.

and to top it off, because it's a faux funeral, have someone in the faux casket, get out of it, dressed like a zombie and run after the protesters. :evilgrin:

Now that would make for some great youtubing. lol

[MindPilot]

32. That's effin' BRILLIANT dude!! eom