REVEREND, YOUR ACCOUNTABILITY MOMENT IS HERE
My late mother was one of those people who clung to the idea that homosexuality was a mental illness and could be CURED. Even though science disproved this in her lifetime, she clung to it. Discomfort or her dogged dislike of change; I don't know why. She set up a number of 'blind dates' for me when I was busy with my career - every single one with an obviously gay man. Then she would rage at me about my gay friends, though I think she wanted to marry me off to the first breathing, carbon based life form and gay men weren't it. I wonder if she thought I could convert them? Though I had no intention of doing so.
My brother and I have a friend who we both met in high school who is openly gay. He's also our family lawyer and works on GLBT issues in our state. My mother had problems with him being in the house when he was just my friend. When my brother befriended him though, she mellowed out without changing her stance. But what has been even more shocking is people we knew from our old neighborhood, all of whom were also friends with this fellow - have recently turned against him because of his sexual orientation. One of them, a new member of the Religious Right, used to be a major party animal who should really know better.
My mother was also admantly against my friendship with my favorite college professor, who came out during my sophomore year and was summarily driven out of the college community with anti-gay sentiment by his colleagues. He was probably one of the few people who ever really understood me. We remained friends and in touch until his death last year.
The only guy who ever got physical with another person because of me was also gay. I remember he and I were walking to dinner in the Village, near his home, when a group of young men came up behind us and started making lewd and suggestive comments about my body and what they "wanted to do to me." This friend turned around and put the leader into a wall, punching him in the jaw and telling him to be more respectful of women. Particularly his women friends. I was flabbergasted because I never took my friend for being that protective.
So that said, gayness has never been an issue for me. I lost count of the people who came out to me in high school and college. They all told me the same thing. That I didn't seem to care if they were gay. And that I was more interested in their character, ethics and integrity. I am the same way with everyone. What you do in privacy is not my business; unless you somehow drag me into it... in which case you are predatory - gay or not.
Fred Phelps, however, is an walking joke in his lack of integrity and character. And finally - the karma bus has run him over:
In Cold Homophobes
By Michael Fox
The utterly beneath-contempt Phelps family -who have logged more than their undeserved “15 minutes” from their inconceivable logarithms of hatred - seem to have gotten their comeuppance at last. And yet, with the $10.9 million punitive judgment against them, the appeals and countersuits will, no doubt, buy them a few more years in the spotlight. Or maybe that light is the glow of roaring hellfire – I wouldn’t know, because unlike the “Reverend” Fred or his daughter Shirley, I’m not acquainted with Satan, nor do I buy even understand the concept of shame over natural human sexuality. I can’t imagine how awful and self-loathing their lives must be – to spend your every waking day and night exacerbating the oppression of others.
In simpler times, this curious family, who call themselves the Westboro Baptist Church, chose to be offensive directly to grieving families at funerals of Gay men who’d died of AIDS. Theorizing that the disease was an act of God, this latter day Manson family would target the survivors of the afflicted. Then, they broke new ground by publicly supporting the monsters who brutally beat Matthew Shepherd then left him to bleed out – tied to a fence.
If ever there was a poster family for the potential danger of rampant heterosexuality, it would be the Phelpses, who now number about 80! Eighty hateful bigots!
Moving on to the present day, and in the looniest extrapolation of their ideology – they have spent the last five years protesting the funerals of fallen soldiers, maintaining that the soldiers fell defending a United States that is damned by its support of homosexuality – did you get that? - the US as great supporter of homosexuality? This, during the Bush era, when as of last year, by internal DHHS order (not act of Congress), it became illegal for a healthy Gay man to publicly donate blood or sperm in the United States?
Now the appeal to the judgment against this evil coven (don’t write – the word is meant to offend the church, not you lovely Wiccans) is being appealed by the ACLU. And I applaud the position of the ACLU even here. Because the freaks from Kansas make themselves and their position more repugnant every time they appear. So let them keep it up. And let them try to pay the judgment (the appeal is over flag desecration, not money). But in a sumptuous bit of irony,the ACLU’s attorney representing the Phelps clan is one Bassel El-Kasaby [1]. Imagine Shirley Phelps-Roper’s panic at having to be in the same room as her attorney.
Truman Capote, the Kansas expert who would’ve seen the wit in all this evil gone awry – is interred in L.A.’s toniest resting place. No Phelps will end up in the Westwood Memorial Park. I figure they have reservations on rotisserie spits in Hell (because they believe in it).
Michael Fox is a writer based in Los Angeles.
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