{Sharing my own desire for a viewpoint of compassion and healing over karmic wrath, this was written by my friend, Rob McCrady, regrding the death of the cult leader of [[Westboro Baptist Church]].}
Jael Phelps picketing Trinity Episcopal Church in Tulsa, Oklahoma (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
Forward: I’m not defending the man’s actions. [[Fred Phelps|Phelps]] did a lot of psychological harm to a lot of people. I AM trying to take a non-celebratory viewpoint on the death of a fellow human being, no matter how icky I think he might have been.
So… Mr. Phelps is dead. He spewed a lot of yuck, and passed that yuck onto countless members of his community. That’s regrettable for the targets of the yuck that he spewed. It’s also regrettable for him and those he taught to spread all that nastiness, and projecting all that negativity wears away at one’s ability to know peace and happiness.
Now before we collectively shout “good, I hope he burns in that hell he believes in so much,” maybe we should hope that he finally receives some peace from this illness that he’s suffered his entire life, and spread to the people whose lives he touched. Let’s hope that those people can heal and know the peace that comes from giving up hatred.
Would we, (straight, but reasonable and relatively tolerant) community have rallied as much as we have and come together with the LGBTQ community as Allies, if Mr. Phelps and his people hadn’t held up that ugly funhouse mirror in front of us and shown just how ugly and harmful (and not to mention, stupid looking,) intolerance can be? I don’t know the answer to that.
So in closing, I have mixed feelings here. A human being is not living anymore. He did a lot of bad stuff, and never got a chance to see the very real harm it did. But I think I have to paraphrase a wise man from many years ago and ask, “Forgive him, for he knows not what he did.”
Accio flamewar.
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