Bikers protect dead soldiers familes from church who say IEDs R gods anger 4 US gays

[Divinus Arma]

Totally weird:

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,185617,00.html

The church thinks that IEDs in Iraq are god's punishment because USA harbors homosexuals. The bikers go around to funerals to protect the dead soldiers' families from the church.

WTF and a half?!?1

[Don Corleone]

Well, that would explain why Gawain's been spending less and less time around here.

Somebody needs to shove an IED up the right Rev. Fred Phelps derriere. .

Who in the name of hell does this jerkoff think he is? This is just so wrong on so many levels.

Edit: Oops, the senior correspondent from the Weekly Standard isn't really on my list for anything, except maybe poor choice in ties. I meant the Rev. Fred Phelps.

[Xiahou]

Somebody needs to shove an IED up the right Rev. Fred Barnes

What did Fred Barnes do? I'm guessing you mean Fred Phelps.

He's the kook quote of the article, imo:

"The scriptures are crystal clear that when God sets out to punish a nation, it is with the sword. An IED is just a broken-up sword," Phelps-Roper said.

Anyhow, good for these "Patriot Guard Riders". I hope they're there at every funeral that these Westboro idiots show up at to drown them out.

[Don Corleone]

I went to that pantload's website and talk about having regrets...

There are some wicked people in this world, and some of them hide behind the gospel. I don't want to say what I found on that website, but it was disgusting. If anything, the fact that God hasn't smited the Westboro Baptist Church and it's leader the Reverend Fred Phelps has me questioning his existence. In any case, I'm seriously thinking about burning some vacation time and flying to Topeka some weekend soon and getting up and heckling this jackass. Somebody needs to... And shame on all the people in Topeka Kansas. They should run this loser out of town... if you ask me, torch carrying mobs are an all-together too rare occurence in these modern times.

[Alexander the Pretty Good]

I've heard of these people before. You-know-what-holes.

Good job, bikers!

[Papewaio]

Back to their roots possibly... isn't there some linkage between the first bike gangs and post WWII veterans...

[Don Corleone]

Dunno, but a lot of current bikers are Vietnam vets (like Gawain) or from service in subsequent years.

[Louis VI the Fat]

This Fred Phelps church / family keeps popping up here every few months. Is there not some law that can stop them? This funeral picketing is intolerable.

Or send them to Iraq and force them to clear IED's. 'What'ya mean, Fred, your legs got blown off? Surely your God would never allow you, his righteous follower, to suffer this fate?'

[Paul Peru]

I tend to do the moral superiority thing a bit myself, but cheering at funerals is about as tasteless as it gets. What a good idea by those bikers, though. Way to to put some purpose into their biking!

I don't intend to cause a right kerfuffle here, but it's a bit like those who harass people at abortion clinics too. Even those who choose to have an abortion (for whatever reason) are usually uncomfortable about it, and they don't really need being covered in blood or waved crucified foetuses at afterwards.

[Fragony]

So these guys actually harras familymembers on funerals??? Whah? That is absolutely disgusting I'd shred them to pieces if they did that to me.

[Kanamori]

I don't know why the funeral owners don't violently throw them out.

If I had a gun, I would enjoy threatening them to get off the property or get shot...

I would have thought these people would get terribly beaten up by angry mobs, and I'm a little disappointed they haven't been.

[monkian]

I went to that pantload's website and talk about having regrets...

There are some wicked people in this world, and some of them hide behind the gospel. I don't want to say what I found on that website, but it was disgusting. If anything, the fact that God hasn't smited the Westboro Baptist Church and it's leader the Reverend Fred Phelps has me questioning his existence. In any case, I'm seriously thinking about burning some vacation time and flying to Topeka some weekend soon and getting up and heckling this jackass. Somebody needs to... And shame on all the people in Topeka Kansas. They should run this loser out of town... if you ask me, torch carrying mobs are an all-together too rare occurence in these modern times.

Maybe you'll end up brawling against Navaros

[Redleg]

I tend to do the moral superiority thing a bit myself, but cheering at funerals is about as tasteless as it gets. What a good idea by those bikers, though. Way to to put some purpose into their biking!

I don't intend to cause a right kerfuffle here, but it's a bit like those who harass people at abortion clinics too. Even those who choose to have an abortion (for whatever reason) are usually uncomfortable about it, and they don't really need being covered in blood or waved crucified foetuses at afterwards.

I tend to think that demonstrations at abortion clinics that heckle those who go into the center to be in the same light as the protestors mocking the dead at a funeral.

[Don Corleone]

Maybe you'll end up brawling against Navaros

I frequently do. I blaspheme the God he believes in and he blashpemes the one that I do.

[Spetulhu]

I would have thought these people would get terribly beaten up by angry mobs, and I'm a little disappointed they haven't been.

IIRC Fred's followers are careful to stay just this side of the law. They're just waiting for someone to go ballistic so they can sue for damages. The church needs money so what better way to get it than by making gay supporters pay in court? It's both the American Way and True Christianity!

[Fragony]

I tend to think that demonstrations at abortion clinics that heckle those who go into the center to be in the same light as the protestors mocking the dead at a funeral.

But those people I can understand, I am not very religious but abortion is wrong imho. This seems to be hurting just for the sake of it.

[Devastatin Dave]

I live outside of Missouri and near Jefferson Barracks where a lot of vets are burried. That POS Phelps has been here with one of his protests. Well, Governor Blunt is putting into law that you cannot protest a funeral 1 hour before or after a funeral. Its a shame that we have to legislate good taste these days. God doesn't hate "fags" as Phelps website says, but I'm sure he dislikes **** ******* like Phelps.

God bless those Bikers and hopefully they'll get a chance to open a can of 55 gallon drum of whoopass on these turds.

[master of the puppets]

AH biking, a true lineage of the newly civilian soldier as Papewaio said (after WW2 vets bough motorcycles which were cheapist thing around, its been a vet thing ever since) so i'm very glad that these people are doing this, its a great honorable enterprise. wish i could say they had this in Veitnam, a bunch of scary bikers to scare away the scumbags who were yelling baby-killers.

and honestly, shame on everyone who follows that thing who dares call himself a revrend, i really hope that the church ousts him. anyway i've been to his website and it REALLY pissed me off. so i say if i ever get called to jury duty for the guys who rapes/tortures/kills fred Phelps my vote will always be NOT GUILTY!!!

[A.Saturnus]

The church, Westboro Baptist Church, is not affiliated with a larger denomination and is made up mostly of Fred Phelps' extended family members.

How many people are those "extended family members" and what sort of family is that?

Bikers Roll to Soldiers' Funerals to Counter Anti-Gay Protests

This headline is certainly proof that we live in an extremely strange world.

[Mikeus Caesar]

Disgusting that humans can stoop as low as those Christians. First the soldiers die for a pointless war, and then have bible-bashing loonies holding an anti-gay protest at their funerals?

Those bikers should run them all down.

[Mount Suribachi]

I'm still trying to get my head round this story.

Its so bizarre I'm actually wondering if this Rev Phelps character and his website is actually some kind of spoof by someone with an axe to grind against christianity (wouldn't be the first time).

But this is just too wierd to have been made up.

So let me get this right. This Rev Phelps dude and his mates protest at the funerals of US soldiers killed in Iraq because their deaths are Gods punishment on America for harbouring homosexuals. And biker veterans go to these funerals to protect the funeral from the protestors. Right?

*confused*

But what I don't get is this. Why are they protesting at the funerals. Many of those killed in Iraq will have been christians. Indeed, christians who, like most christians, probably think homosexuality is a sin (but not one more deserving of Gods wrathful judgement than any other sin).

Weird.

[Don Corleone]

There's a certain crowd within Christianity (think Navaros) that finds homosexuality intolerable, wicked above all other sins (how it gains that status is anyone's business as Leviticus puts it right up there with sleeping with a woman during 'that time of the month'). Technically speaking, Leviticus calls for the death of men who lay with men as women, but it also calls for the death of those who:

Eat shellfish or pork
Cast a lustful eye at any married women (whether they act on it or not, by the way gents, Pamela Anderson has been married of most of her career)
Make and/or wear garments from multiple fibers (cotton & wool in the same sweater? Into the bonfire with you, bucko!)
A whole host of other prohibitions, some of which have survived antiquity, some of which have gone the way of slaughtering every last child of your enemies (which we are commanded to do, btw), we simply don't hold that passage as particularly valid anymore.

So, to these folks, who believe homosexuality is some special sin, they would say that allowing homosexuals to live is equally wicked. We have been commanded in the Torah to put these people to death, and allowing them to live is putting us at odds with God. Apparently, allowing German and Japanese babies to live at the end of WWII was okay though, even though He specifically commanded we not do that either...

So, to this crowd, America, which at least 'tolerates' homosexuality and protects the rights of homosexuals, is breaking God's law and should be destroyed. Interestingly enough, as far as I know, homosexuality, while frequently criminal in the Colonial legal codes & throughout state & federal statues in the USA, has never been a capital offense. If God finds Americans to be so aberrant for allowing homosexuals to live, which we have for the history of entire existence, why hasn't He struck us down at some point in the past ~400 years? What's more, despite what they say about 'the good old days', relying on the passages they're choosing to cite, there has never been a time when America has NOT been wicked and godless and deserving of destruction.

[Mount Suribachi]

Except OT law only applies to Jews, not to Christians, and especially only to Jews in OT times.

Quoting laws from the books of Moses is something that, ironically, both ultra-right wing christians and ultra-left wing anti-christians like to do in order to back up their beliefs and opinions. Hell, you can argue from a theology standpoint that even the 10 commandments don't apply to Christians (being part of the covenant between God and the Jews).

Both of them are under the misconception that Christians are under OT law, when they are not. As Gawain is fond of saying, "show me where it says in the New Testament..."

However, you do make a valid point, that biblically speaking, no sin is better or worse than any other. Sin is sin is sin. One of the great mistakes of Christian history is to elevate some sins above others - traditionally sexual sins above, well, everthing. But part of that could probly be put down to human nature and its love of salicious gossip.

BTW, Jesus said that if you look at another woman lustfully you have in effect committed adultery

[Don Corleone]

BTW, Jesus said that if you look at another woman lustfully you have in effect committed adultery

Yes, but He didn't say the rest of us should kill you for it.

You asked me where these people are getting their justification from. I don't agree with them, I have a hard time calling them Christians, as they don't jibe with the teachings of Christ.... I'm merely letting you know what they claim is their basis for their views & beliefs.

[Mount Suribachi]

Yes, but He didn't say the rest of us should kill you for it.

Good job, otherwise Soly would be up on charges of inciting genocide

[Major Robert Dump]

It's wrong, regardless of whether the funeral is for soldiers or dead homosexuals. You don't disrupt funerals like that, it's not right.

On a happy note, several states are proposing legislation to make "funeral protests" or "disrupting funerals" a crime. As far as I know, Oklahoma is the farthest along on the bill, the house already voted for it and is now awaiting a vote in the senate. It allows for fines and possible jail time, although if they showed up at a funeral I was at they would all be bloddy or dead by the time the cops got there....

Whats sad is that it took this long for our leaders to realize this was a problem. they were either wholly uninformed that its been going on for years, or they didn't care because before it wasn't about soldiers and pols don't want to be percieved as sticking up for gays. Truly sad, really

[Watchman]

You know, I don't quite see where you need God getting involved in the IEDs anyway. All those take is explosives, a bit of know-how, some creativity, and a nasty intent (or as one book on the history of military trap-making and minefields was titled, A Malice Aforethought). Humans have no shortage of any of those, so divine intervention would appear rather unnecessary.

Then again, this particular Reverend doesn't sound like the type to let such trivialities as "logic" or "common sense" slow him down...

[AquaLurker]

Usually if the Fred Phelps church would do that in my country...

*Imagine mode*

Call a bunch of good friends down, set up some comfy pinic mat, order a mountain of burgers, a bucket of fries, great my buddies have brought some beach umbrelas Grin widely as we dial for the police~YOooossshhhh!!!~ and enjoy the show ~Ah CHAaaaaaa.... ~ I left the large cokes at Macdonalds

*Imagine mode off*

Ahhhhh Yumei...

[AntiochusIII]

Well, to play the devil's -- or even worse, Fred Phelp's -- advocate here. This is Freedom of Speech and enduring what we REALLY don't like to hear (not to mention completely twisted) is part of our public virtue. Beating the Phelps out of him might be gratifying in a sense but that would eventually conclude us as the same bunch as the mob that burned the "witches" at Salem, albeit on the other, more acceptable end of the spectrum.

Mocking the dead, hating the "fags," declaring some twisted falsehood as realities; of course, the guy really cries for somebody to punch him, but we should not. The bikers do a good job, by the way, in keeping with protecting those who suffer both emotionally and physically at the death of the soldiers.

[Ironside]

Then again, this particular Reverend doesn't sound like the type to let such trivialities as "logic" or "common sense" slow him down...

He was the one claiming that the tsunami in south-east Asia was god's punishment on the Swedes for promoting homosexuality.

Thus claiming that god's aim is so great that 0,2% of all people killed was of the intended target.