Sunday, August 10, 2008

I am Canadian.


Let's put away all the snark and BT-ass-kicking for just a moment and bask in the reflected glow, shall we?

Even without a conflict, they claimed victory.

That was the prevailing attitude yesterday among hundreds of Winnipeg residents who lined a Westwood street in hopes of keeping a zealous U.S. religious group from rallying outside the funeral of Tim McLean.

As the life of McLean -- who was stabbed to death and beheaded aboard a Greyhound bus July 30 west of Portage la Prairie -- was celebrated at Westwood Community Church, an estimated 400 to 600 supporters of his family lined adjacent streets for hours to keep watch for any appearance by members of the Kansas-based Westboro Baptist Church.

"None of us are just going to stand around and let this happen," Steven Hughes said outside the church on Westwood Drive.

As my grandmother has always said "Show me your friends and I’ll show you who you are" ... so you can take your mouthbreathing, hatemongering, homophobic, twisted bullshit, fold it neatly into a point and shove it, Fred.

It has no place in modern society and it damn sure has no place here in Canada where we judge a person by who they are, not what they are. You might want to keep that in mind the next time you think about heading across the 49th parallel.

I’m just sayin’.

H/T to regular commenter Noni Mausa for the email.

ON THE OTHER HAND ... CC here, and I don't want to downplay LuLu's sentiments above, but I want to draw folks' attention to this comment from a few days back. Because, honestly, while I'm not saying I buy completely into that alternative perspective, I have to admit that it does seem to explain a lot of things.

Think about it -- while the world is full of homophobic, Bible-whomping wingnuts, the Phelps clan takes this to jaw-dropping extremes, to the point where it simply doesn't make any sense. Even if you hate gays, what kind of weird logic does it require to think that protesting at the funerals of fallen troops or murdered Amish schoolgirls is getting that message across? And on top of that, think of the expense of gathering a bunch of your fellow wingnuts and paying your own way up to Canada. For what?

Simply dismissing the Phelps collective as a bunch of Christian whackjobs doesn't strike me as a satisfactory explanation. But if you look at their actions as their way of making a good living out of subsequent litigation, well, that starts to make things seem almost logical.

Note I did say "almost."

12 comments:

Frank Frink said...

It was both predictable and predicted.

The WBC/Phelps people really don't understand Western Canadians, let alone Canadians in general. Having visited most areas of Canada (NWT and Nunavut excepted) I can say truly believe we would have seen the same reaction in any other part of Canada.

MgS said...

Somehow combining Phelps with logic seems a little too close to combining cyanide with kool-aid.

liberal supporter said...

When you see a post discussing Kathy right next to one discussing Fred, you can see they're both doing the same kind of thing.

Sheena said...

Sooey Says on this topic

Father Shaggy said...

My biggest problem with Phelps et al. is that they make people who hate gays slightly less seem normal and sane. They're so clearly crazy that another Baptist is normal in comparison. Having been one, I can assure you they're not, really.

Noni Mausa said...

Whenever I read these cause and effect arguments from religious sources, I invariably ask myself why they are not doing research to clarify and codify those effects.

After all, proof of this cause and effect would go a long ways towards convincing unbelievers that what the religious sources are saying is true.

So, if we believe that two activities are abhorrent to God, we might find out more about this by selecting a bunch of counties matched otherwise for factors such as population size and median income and that sort of thing.

Then you could begin grading these counties based on how active they are or how tolerant they are of those two targeted abhorrent activities, and also study how active and tolerant they are of two presumably neutral activities.

Then, chart the counties from most to least abhorrent, and finally chart the incidence of two or three selected types of disasters or misfortunes in each county, looking to see whether the high abhorrence counties suffered a higher incidence of misfortunes.

A study like this would not be difficult, and think of the headlines once they ran the results past a statistician or two.

Of course, there could be a problem if they discovered that the most abhorrent counties were also counties that had more healthy and prosperous people, better education and a much smaller prison population. You know, like the comparison between Canada -- about 110 people per hundred thousand in prison -- versus the United States which has around 750 prisoners per hundred thousand.

If God is truth, and the foundation of reality, then his preferences should show up with absolute reliability in things which are real and things which are proven to be true. Right?

Noni

Sheena said...

Anyone care for a little Phelps Theatre ce soir?

Red Tory said...

Interesting. Someone asked me other day where there money came from and I was kind of stumped to figure that out. Now, as Paul Harvey says, we know the rest of the story...

CC said...

RT:

I really would like to find more firm corroboration of this rumour. If anyone has links, let's see them.

Noni Mausa said...

Wiki is our friend: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fred_Phelps

I read most of this article with jaw-dropping amazement. Have a look, guys. According to the article, Phelps has had enjoyed an uninterrupted romp of promiscuous hatred, including hatred for gays, Jews, Roman Catholics and Muslims, Swedes and Irish (I could't make that up -- Anti-Swedish?) and, now, Canada, for decades. But he approved of Saddam Hussein.

Can someone read the wiki entry and then explain to me how this is not a terrorist organization? And why this guy and his family are still running free in a nation where elderly deacons can be arrested for wearing a T-shirt?

I did not run across the tax status of his church -- is it possible that it retains a tax-free status?

Now, one final weirdness, from the Wikipedia article:

Phelps says he is an old school Baptist, which includes John Calvin's doctrine of unconditional election, the belief that God has elected certain people for salvation before birth.

In Calvinism, this election is called "unconditional" because [God's] choice to save someone does not hinge on anything inherent in the person or on any act that the person performs or belief that the person exercises. Indeed, according to the doctrine of total depravity (the first of the five points of Calvinism), the influence of sin has so inhibited the individual's volition that no one is willing or able to come to or follow God apart from God first regenerating the person's heart to give them the ability to love him. Hence, God’s choice in election is and can only be based solely on God's own independent and sovereign will and not upon the foreseen actions of man.


So let me see if I've got this right: No one can earn their way into heaven, because original sin makes it impossible for anyone to act righteously. Our actions can make no difference, according to this doctrine. If Phelps believes this, then why picket?

I guess everyone needs a hobby.

Noni


..........dance!...............
angel <------------> head of pin

Frank Frink said...

If Phelps believes this, then why picket?

He doesn't really believe in anything. Except filthy luchre.

Red Tory said...

CC — I wouldn't mind either because, if true, it is kind of humorous, but unfortunately, I just find that outfit so deeply repellent that I can't be bothered.

Just as a semi-related aside, I was paid a visit by your corpulent buddy, Patrick “Ass Pirate” Ross, earlier in the day trying to get a rise out of me (and links to his site). Seems he wrote a phony-baloney “memory” tribute to the fellow that was beheaded that was just a thinly disguised excuse to launch yet another personal attack on me. It was hilariously retarded, at least from just skimming it, but again, I couldn’t muster the effort to waste time responding to it (or linking).