The Westboro Baptist Church

I have written about the Westboro Baptist Church formed by the Rev. Fred Phelps in a previous entry. These people are the crazy Christian fundamentalists that have decided that God has given them a mission that revolves around the eradication of homosexuality, abortion, and adultery. The chosen method of eradication is to protest at all manner of funerals and attribute the death of the individual to some tolerance of homosexuality, abortion, and adultery.

The WBC is the group you see on TV holding the signs and placards that read, "God Hates Fags". These people are hate-mongers, vilifiers, and by my reckoning not even remotely representative of the Christian faith.

The latest target of these idiots has been the funeral of Tim McLean. McLean was the young man decapitated on a Greyhound Bus in Canada the other week. The WBC has decided that the decapitation and cannibalism of McLean was God's way of letting Canada know that he is displeased with the tolerance of Canadian policy and law towards the issues of homosexuality, abortion, and adultery.

To suggest that the WBC is a few sandwiches short of a picnic basket seems to ignore the fact that the picnic basket is not a few sandwiches short but rather it is empty, devoid of all sandwiches! There is nothing rational in the positions that the WBC adopts.

Thankfully, the Canadian border guards have been instructed to bar entry to members of the WBC to Canada. The family of Tim McLean has a right to grieve in peace and bury him without interference from the WBC! I am one that normally advocates that people have a right to protest, and even if I do not agree with you, I still would argue for your right to protest. Nevertheless, some lines in the sand need to be drawn, this is one of those times. The idea of targeting specific individuals as having died because of a government policy and then picketing their funerals is offensive.

The WBC is the same group you see picketing the funerals of fallen soldiers throughout the US. For me the message of the WBC constitutes hate speech and they should and must be prosecuted where the law allows for this sort of vilification to be prosecuted.

My guess is that God hates the Westboro Baptist Church!

Bashir and Tourists

This is old news but I just found this cartoon while surfing the Internet for other interesting cartoons to publish and offend my readers with. It is OK to publish cartoon depictions of Muslims, right? Just not of the Prophet, right?

Bashir (Ba'asyir) is somewhat renowned for his calls to violence against the infidels and his desire to form a pan-Islamic Caliphate in Southeast Asia. So, his comments implying that foreigners are nothing more than worms, snakes, and maggots is hardly surprising! Pretty tame stuff really. I would have thought each of these things are one of God's creatures and have been created with a purpose in mind. I might have been a little more offended if he had have called me Satan's love child or something similar!

However, his calls to violence and statements to the fact that it would be OK to beat tourists up is extreme and must be considered as an incitement to violence. He should be called on this and be punished according to the law if the alleged statements are proven true. There is supposedly a video of this speech but in a quick search before writing this post I could not find it. If I do track it down I will post it as a link.

This is not an issue of free speech. As I have posted many times, with free speech comes great responsibility. This is not a man exercising his right to free speech but rather an abuse of free speech to preach hatred and violence. Free speech must be protected and hate speech and vilification must be prosecuted. This is simply not a case of one person's free speech being another person's vilification!

I have been pinged recently on another forum for quoting from the movie Forrest Gump! Apparently, quoting from a movie casts some degree of doubt on my ability to make rational or logical argument -- essentially I was an intellectual minnow in the big scheme of things, oh well.

Anyway, as Forrest would say in this case "stupid is as stupid does!"

Enjoy the rest of your Sunday!

God Hates Australia

It is important to learn something everyday. Today I learned that God hates Australia!



I have written about the Westboro Baptist Church in passing when I wrote my post about the passing of Heath Ledger. This little flyer is something they published at the time when they were jumping up and down claiming that God had already started to visit his wrath on Australia and had started with Heath Ledger. It appears that Ledger's crime against God was to portray a homosexual cowboy in Brokeback Mountain. I guess this means that the Christian God really is a vengeful God!




Generally, I try and be understanding of all, even the far Christian right, but this supposed Church is so far right that I do not think they are in cooee distance. Besides, I just do not see that rational argument is an option here. Look, how do you argue a rational point of view with a Church whose website address is www.godhatesfags.com? Afterall, these are the same religious zealots (I must admit other words came to mind other than zealot) that protest at the funerals of returned service men and women in the US.




Apparently, God is killing America's young men and women in Afghanistan and Iraq as punishment for moving away from the pure teachings of God. It appears that in particular God sends down his wrath against anyone or any country that tolerates homosexuality.

The above just goes to show that there is no one religion that has a monopoly on fundamentalist teachings and interpretations. Even ones that seem to cross the line to vilification and hate speech in some pundits books!




At least Australia can now move on from the "where the bloody hell are ya?" tourism campaign and onto one such as this: "Come and visit the most corrupt and decadent place on the planet" or "hurry to visit the most corrupt and decadent place on earth before the wrath of God takes it all away!" I would imagine that if the Westboro Baptist Church is right then Australia will not have a lot of time to capitalize on this pre-wrath destruction so Tourism Australia better "get the party started", to borrow a line from Pink!




This is a good test for those who clamour to protect free speech and those who seek to limit free speech. The flip side of free speech is the freedom to ridicule, to insult, to belittle, and to mock, among others! The question though is when does this apparent freedom to ridicule and insult cross the "line in the sand" to vilification or other criminal speech?




I am a big believer in free speech but an equally big believer that if one wants to enjoy the freedoms of speech then they must respect that this is not an absolute or unlimited freedom and be responsible for the words they utter!




I am sure that the members of the Westboro Baptist Church believe whole-heartedly what they preach and most, if not all, would be prepared to go to jail for their beliefs. Ahhhh, such is the power of religion and faith in God!




But no matter what the Westboro Baptist Church thinks -- I am proud to be an Australian and will remain proud right to the end whenever that may be! So, Westboro Baptist Church -- you lose!

The Profane, the Obscene, and the downright Vulgar

I have felt the need to write this post and was thinking of doing it yesterday but caught up with other things. But now that I know my folks are going to read my blog perhaps this entry will serve as explanation rather than justification for using words that they may find offensive...hey Ma + Pa!

The post prior to this one uses words and some language that is sure to offend as many may consider it to be profane, obscene, or perhaps even vulgar. Yet, the point, albeit perhaps to subtle for some, is that the nature of the offense is more related to the context of the utterance than the utterance itself. Perhaps we should be less tolerant and thick-skinned to the vilification of those around us. Nevertheless, as times change so do our attitudes and understandings of what constitutes offensive language.

Having worked in the criminal law the words in the previous blog and some even more choice words than those do not cause my skin to crawl or cause me any particular personal offense. For others I am sure that offense is intense and perhaps acute. As some of these words are generally considered to be taboo.

I recall an instance way back when, 1992 to be precise, where I was staying with my Nan and Granch in Chepstow in south Wales not far from Tintern Abbey, and Granch was going to cook lunch. Lunch was to be faggots and mash. Now, for those of you who only know the word faggot to mean something different, then let this be a lesson in context. A faggot is simply a meatball and mash is the potatoes that accompany them. But the recollection never ceases to bring a smile to my face, the smile being more intense when people ask me what your favourite food is. Because I can answer; I love to eat faggots and mash! Huh!

So, back to the point of this post...offense is relative and to those of you that I offend with my word choices, I offer my apologies for the offense caused. I am a firm believer of constructive debate and I am prepared for people to constructively criticise my choices, provide feedback, and to try and educate me to the perils of my understandings, But the constructive debate angle allows me to do the same things back to you!

When it is all said and done, thanks for reading my blog!