Crazy Comes to Town

So, I hear tell from Carroll Garten that the Fred Phelps fuck is gonna drive the kool aid bus to DeKalb, IL, and picket at NIU about God hating fags, victims of the shooting spree burning in hell, blah, blah, yada yada. It wouldn't be an advisable legal or moral thing to do, of course, but I could imagine some distraught soul might take it upon himself to convert a few batshit (non)Baptists into the victims of yet another shooting spree if such unpardonable protests were allowed to interfere with the grieving of survivors or family members. Funny...then the remaining members of Phelps's church would have to say that the slain from their very own congregation (their pastor included, if the gunman has any kind of aim) were killed because God hates fags...and that the good Christan churchgoers were roasting in hell.

But no. The irony would be delicious, but irony isn't as much fun when it comes with a pile of dead bodies (axe Brush about that). Phelps be crazy, but I guess the best approach is to treat him like you would the mentally ill dude yelling shit out in a New York subway: ignore the fuck out of him, and walk faster. To acknowledge such insanity at this point--beyond keeping it cordoned off to the side as best as possible in public--is prolly beyond useless since there really seems to be no danger that Phelps will convert anyone to his way of thinking. Bill Maher once pointed this out with Pat Robertson, saying that P.R.'s batshit quotes always get mentioned in the media even tho' he's just a quirk or two away from barking mad on the streets with feces on his face (or something to that effect). Do we really care, for example, that the asylum residents are racists or homophobic or don't like "House"? (well, I did get into a fight with this severely bipolar guy once about "House"...)

In a way, though, I'm at least just a little perversely amused by whut Phelps does with the dead Iraq vets...not b/c I think it's cool or in any way logical--it's lame and stupid--but it does kind've extend the illogic of the fundamentalist Christian movement. Robertson's buddy Faldwell kicked off that line of thinking by saying that God let innocent peeps get snuffed (most of them, presumably, Christians) on 9/11 because He really, really hates queers and strippers. So if that were true, why wouldn't God have the onward Christian soldiers in his crosshairs, too? It is a fucking shame, though, that the absurdity of the anti-gay fundamentalist crusade has to be pointed out at the expense of those who are grieving for lost loved ones.