I think they did, they were found guity, but thanks in part to media coverage and the aid of Hollywood celebs they were given time served.

The thing with the WBC is they're calvinists. They believe that absolutely everything that happens on earth is preordained by god, except for the actions of those preordained by god to be part of the elect few who will actually go to heaven.

They also believe that only the WBC qualifies as that elect few. Which is to say, Fred Phelps believes that his family, and his family alone, comprise the entirety of God's favoured people.

How they'd react to half of them being gunned down, would be rather more interesting than I think I can reasonably speculate on.

(Note: This is also why they picket. They believe the god preordained the sins of everyone who isn't in the WBC, and so their pickets are to celebrate the actions of god, who caused his unchosen to sin, that he may strike them down.)


Yes, I'm aware of how completely insane that is.

And as usual you have Obama ignoring the separation of Church and State in his speech tonight.


How are you going to talk about God, Heaven and the Scripture and the hope they can provide at this time? Not very comforting to say the least.

He's an american president. As sad and horribly depressing as it may be, and as much as you might not want to admit this, the fact is that if he doesn't make an effort to show allegiance to god, he loses part of the electorate and part of the popular opinion.

Not to mention, this is the man whose first 4 years in office were largely marred by and tarnished by the deluded and insane debate over whether he was a muslim or not. A debate which he put to rest on no fewer than 3 occasions with documented evidence that some complete whack jobs still believe was forged.

Is it any ****ing wonder he talks about that ****? He stands more to gain by playing up the religious angle than by fighting from a completely secular position.

They also believe that if people are responding so strongly that they must be doing the right thing. If someone did kill a bunch of them, they'd feel even more motivated to promote their message.

This is true, however much that conflicts with their belief that everything but them is preordained.

You're probably right. I guess I overestimate the average American's intelligence.

You think they're guilty even despite the DNA evidence to the contrary?

America's rough political center, taken as a country, is pretty much racist, capitalist christian white males. I'm afraid its going to be quite some time, if it happens at all, before the changing political climate (Increases in atheist demographics, greater equality for men and women, greater equality for ethnic groups), develops into a force that can genuinely influence a candidates choice of political platform away from that and more towards a secular, non-misogynist and non-racist viewpoint. To say nothing of any real pro-LGBT representation anywhere within government at all. Not necessarily even an elected LGBT poltician persay, but rather a politican that at least genuinely empathises with and will vote in accordance with a pro-LGBT belief out of basic human decency, which I don't believe is currently the case. Or rather, it could be the case, but it would be political suicide on a national stage (thanks to america having so many extremely bigoted but politcally important demographics) so its kept very low key so as to not ruin chances on the campaign trail in a politicians later career.

No, it really isn't.