Sunday, March 23, 2014

ON THE PASSING OF FRED PHELPS

LGBT religious groups responded to his demise with compassion for the human sorrow that death brings and with calls to end the religiously-based anti-gay rhetoric that Phelps personified.  On the CNN Religion BlogJim Smith,DignityUSA's Associate Director, had this to say:
“There is a sadness as deep as the Grand Canyon over the harm that he has unleashed in our country, a sadness that can’t be quantified. But that still doesn’t mean I delight in his death. I’d delight in the end of the Westboro [Baptist Church] mission.”
To Smith's sentiments, we say, "Amen!"

Taking a different perspective was a Kansas Catholic Church official,  who claimed that Phelps' extremism harmed people who oppose marriage equality and other pro-LGBT issues. Jacksonville.com reported :
"Michael Schuttloffel, executive director of the Kansas Catholic Conference, said Phelps and his congregation still represent 'an easy device' for gay-marriage supporters to "short-circuit the conversation" on that and related issues in recent years.
" 'People were justifiably, appropriately outraged by the things that they did,' Schuttloffel said of Phelps and his church. 'As soon as someone, then, is able to tar you as being related to them or thinking the same way as them, right away you're starting behind the eight ball.'
So sad that Mr. Schuttloffel turned this occasion into a statement about marriage.  So sad that a Catholic official does not recognize the pain and harm that Phleps caused so many.
--Francis DeBernardo, New Ways Ministry

To which I add my "Amen!"
  Justin


8 comments:

radicaljoe7@gmail.com said...

I don't think that the "Westboro [Baptist Church] mission.” will go away. I think that Fred helps may strengthen their Hateful cause. The Catholic Conservatives
will never let it go. The same for many of the Protestant Sect's.
Maybe time, may let it all Pass.
We are very lucky to be in the good Ole U.S.A.. God Bless America..........


Unknown said...

As a funeral worker, I don't agree with Dignity's business practices, but I do agree with this representative from there.
As for the Catholic rep, someone had to turn this political.

J said...

I am reminded that Dean Acheson, when informed of the death of Joe McCarthy, said, "De mortui nihil nisi bonum." That's about all we can say about The Reverend Phelps.

J said...

Opps. Dropped the s from mortuis.

JustinO'Shea said...

"About the dead (say) only what is good."

J, does this work "It's good he is dead!" ????

ho ho ho

J said...

My late uncle claimed there was a delicious ambiguity to the original phrase, which could be rendered in English as "death" or "the dead". I haven't checked it out in my ancient copy of Cassell's English-Latin Dictionary. Surely we all can agree that Phelps' death as an unrepentant hate-monger is a blessed relief. While John Donne may have written that all Europe was the less if a clod was washed into the sea, some clods are so odious that the whole world would be the better off without them.

Gary Kelly said...

The way I see it, not speaking ill of the dead has its roots in superstition - a fear of being reprimanded in the afterlife.

So for me, it's not a problem. Fred Phelps was, is and always will be evil.

JustinO'Shea said...

GARY, in my profession, to say other would be denial fostering neurosis. His malice and ignorance remains culpable.
To deny his malice would be to surrender to his power,
influence. and I'd be as guilty as he.
========
It may be numerical Spring but looks like the Cape is gonna get clobbered. . .again. YIKES.