Win, win, win for the fag-baiting religious right

When the cartoonish “God hates fags” Westboro Baptist Church led by Fred Phelps (who's cartoonishness is more Donald than Mickey) announced plans to picket the funerals of the Amish girls killed in Bart Township, Pennsylvania, right-wing talker, Mike Gallagher (KKOL m-f, 6-9p) stepped up.

The group who demonstrates at funerals of U.S. troops killed in Iraq, says God is really pissed at America for its tolerance of gay sex and that's why those people are dying in Bush's war.

But this time it isn't just all of us who's pissed them off, it's the Democratic Governor of Pennsylvania who once, apparently, dared oppose them on TV. (you're right, opposing Phelps isn't exactly a giant piece of political bravery).

Rev. Phelps writes on his Web site: "Gov. Ed Rendell — speaking and acting in his official capacity to bind the State of Pennsylvania — slandered and mocked and ridiculed and condemned Westboro Baptist Church on national Fox TV.”

That, they say, made God send the crazed gunmen to slaughter six little girls in the tiny Amish schoolhouse.

Enter Salem Radio talker and Fox News contributor Mike Gallagher who gave the Baptist fag-haters an hour of national radio time to spread their Christian love in exchange for them calling off their demonstration. (Salem is a starkly right-wing religious network who owns many Christian stations (like local KKOL and KGNW) and such hosts as Michael Medved, Bill Bennett, Janet Parshall, Laura Ingraham, Hugh Hewitt, and The Dirt Doctor).

So everybody won, except, of course, the gays.

Phelps won because he gets to spew his hypermanic, homophobic poodle doodle over the national airwaves- scoring a national audience was his goal all along.

Gallagher won with ratings bolstered by the publicity.

Salem wins along with the religious right- they get to look tolerant while letting Phelps stir up the base, many of whom believe him to be correct about God taking down America because of the increasing acceptance of gays. (Remember Falwell and Robertson's remarks after 9-11?)

Comments

[coiler]

The Governor has the official duty to waterboard Phelps as an enema of the State of Pennsylvania

[chucks]

BS
Nobody won.
Not the radio station.
Not the host.
Not the advertisers.
Not the listoners.
certainly not the victims.
I am pretty sure that 90% of us who might normally listen just turned the dial.
I am to the right of Reagan.
My son is to the left of Mcdermott.
We both are repulsed by the fruitcake Phelps and his band of merry idiots. They do not deserve a moment of your time or mine. Unless of course we could meet them at a funeral and just pound them into the ground.

[sparky]

You rock, chucks!

[sparky]

By the way....they are not Christians...

[sparky]

Watching Keith O...

Fred Phelps needs to be tied to a chair and forced to watch and listen to the Amish community...they have insisted that some of the $500K that has been donated to them by the public be shared with the widow of the man who shot and killed the children. They have been overwhelmed by gifts of food as well, and while they said they could handle things themselves, they also said that it would not be Christ-like to deny people the blessings they were givng to them.
Fred Phelps and that mess he calls his "followers" ( a few family members) are not Christians.

[lukobe]

Lars Larson had Phelps on KTTH and I was glad to hear him NOT take Phelps's side (though I guess he did give him airtime). None of Larson's callers did, either.

[umo]

Gallagher performed a great service by keeping the hateful Godhatesfags people away from the funerals of the little Amish girls. Thanks to Gallagher the greiving families did not have to endure the further suffering those religious nuts were determined to inflict. They got an hour of airtime on Gallagher's radio show and anyone not willing to listen to their repulsive drivel had the option to turn if off.

[Rick]

Fred Phelps is a waste of skin and when we acknowledge him we are wasting our time...

[Oly]

I don't know how many degrees of separation there are between nitwits like Robertson & Falwell, on the one hand, and worthless inbred filth like the Westboro cult (not to mention between the Robertson-Falwell axis and mainstream conservatism).

But seeking to make this issue a battlefield between right and left - or more precisely an example of the superiority of left over right - is on a par with righties seeking to discredit all progesssives, and all progressive ideas, by trotting out pieces of garbage like Lenin and Castro and posing them as the carefully-hidden gods of the mainstream left. Giving the Phelps pukes airtime for the purpose of ratings - bad enough as that is - is hardly the same as giving them airtime out of a sense of common cause; neither Gallagher nor the other rightwing hosts in Salem's stable - nor, very likely, the suits at Salem itself - are fans of the Westboros or the Westboro submentality.

And Gov. Rendell's party affiliation means exactly zero here. The Westboros stand so far outside the margins of mainstream society - and certainly of the "normal" political scene - that they make no distinction at all between liberals and conservatives; they hate both groups, and indeed all of America outside their psychotic cult, with equal viciousness.

[sparky]

My guess is the Amish would have walked up to Fred and invited him to share a meal. They would have ignored his rantings and extended a hand of friendship.

By the way, Fred rarely shows up to these things. He sends his daughter and her family. He is too scared he will get hit with a brick.

[joanie]

When does something become hate speech . . . which I thought was actually illegal? Am I wrong?

And please don't argue the free-speech clause in the C cause I know it is there . . . I just thought that (like "fire" in a crowded theatre) we had something on the books for this kind of thing.

[sparky]

No, Fred and the KKK and other fringe groups are allowed to march and protest....

[joanie]

Well, then, I guess the best way to protect freedom is to meet them on the street with our own signs and support for the Amish . . . Perhaps we need to do more of that instead of just blogging and talking.

Thom was talking yesterday about how this Republicanism seems to go in 30-year cycles. Did you hear him Sparky?

If it started with Reagan, should be reaching it's peak. But so much to undo . . . is it even possible?

[sparky]

yes I heard him, and as Thom said, yes, it is possible! But it wont be easy and it will take a long time. I hope people can be patient.

[joanie]

But. once we get it fixed again. . . they'll take it back again! Hopefully, I'll be long gone . . .

[P-1 SternFan]

Howard Stern had the daughter Shirley Phelps on his growing & very popular Satellite Radio show today. She has been a recurring guest on the show over the last few years. When Howard gets Pissed off he does a great job of Berating people and he laid it in to her. It was Hilarious.. and then he ended the interview saying she is just angry at the rest of the world because God gave her a "Horse Face" !!

[sparky]

Howard is the king!

[joanie]

But, she keeps coming back for more? Well, that's telling . . .

[lukobe]

So did anyone listen to Gallagher today?

[Left Behind by the New Democratic Party]

Hello.

You know... a part of me REEEAALLLY wishes Mike Webb was back on the radio JUST so he could have an hour with the Phelps clan.....(and they could not hang up like they tend to do if someone dares mock them.)

Now THAT would be great radio!

[umo]

Howard Stern making fun of a horseface woman? That's rich. He needs to take a good look at his girlfriend Beth...she looks like a Kentucky Derby entry.

[Tommy008]

Howard Stern is one of the lowest froms of life on the planet, including the animal kingdom.

[Oly]

As much as Mike Webb makes my skin crawl, it would be sort of fun to hear him lock horns with one of those Phelps spokespeople. Maybe a televised debate, with both parties handcuffed to their lecterns so they couldn't run away when things got hot. (Webb could wear a bag over his head to preserve what little visual anonymity he has left.)

The Westboros and critters like them not only lack hearts and brains - and courage - but they don't possess a sense of either humor or irony. As many years as Stern & Co have allowed resident Kleagle Daniel Carver to share their airwaves, I'm not sure that Carver has yet figured out that he's being played for the buffoon that he is. And I'll bet that 90 percent of Howard's jabs at Ms Phelps went far over her head. (Hell, she couldn't even keep up with Dori Monson when she was on HIS show, and that's saying alot.)

And if Beth O looks like a horse, as the obviously myopic Umo maintains, I am prepared to move to Enumclaw and become a horse lover.

[joanie]

Just curious . . . how did Monson handle Ms. Phelps?

[Oly]

With undisguised contempt, and a delivery dripping with sarcasm the likes of which he doesn't normally employ even for fans of Sound Transit. It was one of his proudest moments; for a few minutes he sounded like a guy with a true heart. The woman finally hung up on him, once it began to seep into her thick cranium that he was not a sympathetic interviewer.

[snoutcounter]

Funny how it used to be the "Ron and Bomb" show, but now that they are after "hairspray" now they are all good? BTW do you know the bombsters have given BW'S moniker a new spin "reading the newspaper so you don't have to

[sparky]

I remember Shirley Phelps being on Dori's show about 10 years ago and she kept calling him "Dude" and he would start laughing each time she did that. She wasnt quite as hostile yet and they did an entire half hour. After they were done, Dori spent the rest of the show calling everyone "dude."