Anti-American Fundamentalists. As topical humorists might say, "You can't make this stuff up."
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My friend Joe from Belleville (the northern suburb I'd like Newark to annex) sent me a link to an AOL News story from February 21st:

They call themselves the Patriot Guard Riders, and they are more than 5,000 strong, forming to counter anti-gay protests held by the Rev. Fred Phelps at military funerals.

Phelps believes American deaths in Iraq are divine punishment for a country that he says harbors homosexuals. His protesters carry signs thanking God for so-called IEDs -- explosives that are a major killer of soldiers in Iraq.

The bikers shield the families of dead soldiers from the protesters, and overshadow the jeers with patriotic chants and a sea of red, white and blue flags.

I suppose it might be thought refreshing to find Radical Rightists hostile to militarists, and we are all safest when the forces of regression are split among themselves, but this is just plain sad. In a couple of ways.
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First, no matter what you think of the war (and I am, as regular readers know, profoundly opposed), it is disgraceful to attack the dead and increase the pain of grieving survivors.
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Second, it's sad to see a "church" that has got Jesus's message so completely wrong. Where genuine Christians say "God Is Love", Phelps says God is hate. Where Jesus said 'He who believeth in me shall have everlasting life', Phelps says Christianity is death. Jesus held each person, individually, to account for his sins, and offered forgiveness if s/he repented. Phelps will have none of that but blames everyone for the (supposed) sins of some. Why doesn't he blame himself? If the Nation is responsible, and he is part of the Nation, surely he deserves to die as much as anyone, no? Especially is that so in that some of the soldiers killed were surely as antigay as he.
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With so much going on in a country the size of the United States, the insane fixation of some "religious" loons on homosexuality in particular suggests a homosexual problem in their members. Why is this so important to them? Homosexuality is important to homosexuals, and people who are afraid they're homosexual, but not at all important to well-adjusted heterosexuals — who have their own lives to live and have many other concerns far more important than other people's sex lives.
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Rightwing nuts made similar claims about Hurricane Katrina being God's punishment for wickedness — for abortion, sexual libertinism, you-name-it — as tho God is so stupid and unfair that He can't sort out the good from the bad but punishes everyone for the 'sins' of some. That throws a monkey wrench into the premise of the Vietnam-era teeshirt slogan "Kill Them All. Let God Sort Them Out", doesn't it? Apparently God can't sort them out either but kills the good with the bad.
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That's the Old Testament God-of-Wrath crap: God so hated the sins of one species that he drowned the world and killed all human beings except one family and every member of every land-dwelling species but one pair. Giraffes, rabbits, koalas, kittens, puppies all had to die for the sins of some men! Lunacy — no: evil lunacy.
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Christianity rejected that insane theology, the same kind of crap as believed by primitives who threw virgins down volcanoes to appease their own God of Wrath. Jesus posited a loving God, and, six centuries later, Islam spoke of God as "The Compassionate, The Merciful". Rev. Phelps will have none of it, but insists on hounding the dead beyond death, even people who were as antihomosexual as he and who may have shared almost all of his theological views!

At least 14 states are considering laws aimed at the funeral protesters, who at a recent memorial service at Fort Campbell wrapped themselves in upside-down American flags. They danced and sang impromptu songs peppered with vulgarities that condemned homosexuals and soldiers.

These measures would forbid demonstrations within 300 feet, or within earshot of mourners. We really have to pass laws against obscenely insensitive behavior by fundamentalist loons. I am pleased to say to antigay rightwingers: "Those are your people, not ours. Aren't you proud?"
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(The current U.S. military death toll in Iraq, according to the website "Iraq Coalition Casualties", is 2,287.)
- posted by L. Craig Schoonmaker @ 3:34 PM