YOU'RE STILL WRONG
POST MRR COLUMN No. 8
by Mykel
Board
aka Today I Wear Black
“This
nation is poised to trash the first amendment just to stop my
preaching. I'm kind of honored.” --Fred
Phelps
The
enemy? Hey: it could be like Sid Vicious in his swastika shirt…
singing My Way. What could be punker in the 21st century than
becoming a Muslim?
--Mykel Board writing about Islam as Punk in 2012
It's
Friday, March 21. I wear black because FRED PHELPS, founder of
Westboro Baptist Church, has kicked the bucket. Actually, I wear
black every day. I live in New York and am an old punkrocker, so OF
COURSE I wear black. Today, I have an additional reason.
"If
I had nobody mad at me," he said, "what right would I have
to claim that I was preaching the Gospel?"
There
is more to it than that. Phelps had an additional reason.
Fred
was probably most famous for picketing the funerals of U.S.
servicemen. He and his followers claimed the soldiers' deaths were
related to increased tolerance of homosexuality, rather than... oh
let's say ...increased U.S. belligerence and aggression against the
rest of the world. Wacky, huh? I don't think so.
I
say Fred Phelps was a punk. I've written before about Asperger's
Syndrome. Victims of A.S. lack empathy for others. They can't tell
what other people think, so they say and do inappropriate
things.
They're not aware of what will offend.
I
also described a variant. I call it AsburgerKING Syndrome. In that
one, people say and do things BECAUSE they'll offend. AsburgerKing is
punk.
Now
let's take a look at Fred Phelps:
He
moves to Topeka Kansas on May 4, 1954. In these pre-preacher times,
he's a practicing lawyer. He moves the day the Supreme Court decides
the case of Brown
vs. Board of Education.
The court says that school segregation is illegal. The idea of
separate-but-equal
is
not viable. Separate cannot be equal, they decide.
It's
the beginning of desegregation... and busing. White people are
furious at the prospect of their little Johnny or Mary going to
school with little LeRoy or Kesha!
So,
in his new home in this white state in the near south, what would the
most annoying, hateful job be... especially for a lawyer? Yep,
INTEGRATION LAW! Suing white schools on behalf of black constituents.
Let the colored folks in! Now!
And
guess what Fred Phelps Esq. takes it on himself to do... at discount
rates? You guessed it! Be a lawyer against the white schools! Push
the colored folks on them!
Rev.
Ben Scott, president of the NAACP's Topeka branch, talks to CNN.
“Fred
Phelps?” He says, “Most
blacks -- that's who they went to, I don't know if he was cheaper or
if he had that stick-to-it-ness, but Fred didn't lose many back
then."
Sounds
pretty punk to me.
The
nineties brought a change in attitude. Many saw it as a
liberalization
of thinking. For me, it was a new quest for normalcy... but that's a
different column... several of them.
In
any case, Negritude became less of an issue. Most people either
didn't care, or supported Fred in the integration effort. The new
controversy was Homotude.
It's
the early 90s: homo movements are noisy enough to encourage a “hands
off” attitude by the locals. Fred tests the homo waters in 1991. He
appears as the new pastor at Westboro
Baptist Church,
most of whose members are in the Phelps family. Using the church
pulpit as a stage, Fred publicly complains about the city of
Wichita's “refusing to stop homosexual activity in a public park.”
He
makes a few waves, and is soon forgotten.
1998:
Matthew Shepard is murdered in Wyoming. Though there
is now some
controversy
surrounding his death, in
1998, the world is convinced Shepard was murdered because of his
sexuality. Even conservatives are shocked by the brutal slaying.
America's
homosexuals jump on the murder, using Shepard as a posterboy for
homophobia. Every objection to homotude is met with “that's
just what Matthew Shepard's murderer said.”
Even the Catholic church shuts up for a while.
In
steps Rev. Phelps, and the Westboro crew. They assemble... all dozen
or so of them... and picket Shepard's funeral. Pictures
of their notorious GOD HATES FAGS posters are in every newspaper from
here to Timbukthree. It's Sid Vicious with his swastika shirt,
singing My
Way-- yet again.
Westboro is the Filth and the Fury. Labeled up and down as HATERS,
they instantly become the HATED.
Outrage
pours from Americans like beer from Oktoberfest taps. Left and right
shake in their collective boots: army, cowboy, or recycled imitation
leather. This guy is EVIL!
The
hate-baiting Southern
Poverty Law Center calls
Westboro Baptist "arguably the most obnoxious and rabid hate
group in America."
Over
on the other side, Jerry Falwell, not exactly Mr. Tolerance himself,
answers those who accuse Westboro of giving right-wing religious
zealots a bad name. He calls Phelps “a hatemonger” and
“unbalanced.”
“Fred
Phelps does not give the religious right a bad name,” says Falwell,
“because nobody claims kin to that guy.”
Damned
right! Nobody would.
When
Falwell dies, there's Fred and his crew at the funeral.
“Falwell
split Hell wide open" says Fred... at the cemetary... And he's
there... with another great sign: GOD
IS AMERICA'S TERRORIST.
I don't get it either, but I love it.
Fred
knows if he sticks to picketing religious right-wingers and homos,
he'll again be shuffled off to the side, ignored. Most Americans are
neither religious maniacs nor fudge packers.
Opportunity
knocks in 2003. The Supreme Court strikes down anti-sodomy laws. The
homo movement turns from Homotude
as exceptional...
and legalizing the right to be exceptional... to Homotude
as just like everybody else.
The right to marry replaces the right to screw in the park bushes.
Gay people abandon punkdom for white picket fences.
Fear
not, Fred will pick up the slack.
Phelps
understands that the glue holding America together is... well...
Americans. And the glue that holds Americans together is the love of
people in uniform-- American uniforms.
From
The VFW to Veterans
for Peace,
Americans love soldiers-- especially dead ones. Arlington Virginia
Military Cemetery has as many visitors as Disneyland. Let some
veteran into a ballpark... and there'll be a ceremony. An
incalculable number of minutes-of-silence®
have been spent on people who did nothing more than murder their
fellow human beings-- and in turn get murdered by them. Americans
can't get enough of flag-draped coffins.
So,
where do Fred Phelps and the Westboro dozen go? You guessed it, to
MILITARY FUNERALS. And not with just any picket sign. What's gonna
offend most? Would you believe THANK
GOD FOR DEAD SOLDIERS?
Or PRAY FOR MORE DEAD SOLDIERS?
This
is what makes Phelps so punkrock. He takes the most precious idea...
the thing Americans hold dearest... almost all Americans... and he
pisses on it.
There
are trials... arrests. Fred's case goes all the way to the Supreme
Court. Amazingly, in 2011, the court upholds Westboro's right to
picket military funerals. Unhappy at that, Congress and several
states pass laws requiring some distance between the pickets and the
funeral. Other states try more obstructionist tactics. Everybody
hates Fred.
In
2013, more than 367,000 petitioners ask the White House to legally
recognize Westboro Baptist Church as A HATE GROUP. The White House
calls Westboro's protests "reprehensible" but says "as
a matter of practice, the federal government doesn't maintain a list
of hate groups." Yeah, right.
But
that's not the point. What IS the point is that Phelps chose his
targets to maximize offense-- not to make a statement. I doubt he
believed half of he said. Check it out:
Denmark
legalized gay marriage long before the U.S. did. Was Phelps out there
damning the Danes? Where were the GOD HATES DENMARK signs? How 'bout
HANS CHRISTIAN ANDERSEN WAS A PEDOPHILE? Pickets at the funerals of
anybody whose last name ends in SEN? It didn't happen. Denmark has
five million people. Most of them don't give a little mermaid's ass
what happens in the U.S. Attack Denmark? Why? There's nobody to
offend.
Fred wasn't against
homosexuality any more than I'm against fellatio! He was an agitator,
a rabble-rouser, a troublemaker. A punk.
When
the band Guest
Shot filmed
a “porno”
(actually just a girl clit diddling herself) on Westboro church
grounds, Fred could have called the cops. This wasn't picketing. This
was trespassing. But there was NO reaction from the Westboro crew?
Why? Because that too was punk. It was something Phelps could
understand and appreciate.
So
at 84, Fred Phelps is gone. And with his death, I'm afraid, will go
the spirit of the church. The spirit of punk.
If
I can get Fred's kind of reaction when I'm his age, it'll be a dream
come true. In the meantime, I just sit in front of my Toshiba laptop,
typing this column-- wearing black for a good reason.
--end--
ENDNOTES:
[You can contact me by email at god@mykelboard.com.
Through the post office: send those... er... private DVDs..or music
or zines... or anything else (legal only!) to: Mykel Board, POB 137,
New York, NY 10012-0003. If you like my writing, you can be notified
when anything new is available by joining the MYKEL'S READERS Yahoo
group readmboard-subscribe@yahoogroups.com]
-->Like
a Virgin dept:
The town of Virgin, Utah requires a fee from residents who want to
comment on zoning and planning issues at Town Council meetings. They
have to pay $25 for the "right," according to a new law.
Two years before, the town tried to require homeowners to have guns
for self-defense. That law was struck down by the courts.
For
me, that's a perfect representation of our democracy. Free speech to
anyone who can afford the price-- and a gun to enforce it.
-->Women
are the oppressed ones? dept: You'd
expect that in a society that values men over women... and oppresses
women... and creates a patriarchy... women would be unhappier than
men. You'd expect that women would be offing themselves at twice (or
more) the rate that men do. Why live under such oppression? Why just
not take half a dozen pills and end it all?
Well,
that's not the case. The
Guardian
reports
“Male
suicide rate in the UK is 3½ times that of women.” Wikipedia tells
of
a similar disparity among US suicides. So, who has the harder life?
The most misery? Hmmm?
-->Why
is MRR like the NFL? dept: Readers
of my post
MRR columns
know that the reason for my being fired from that zine was my
insistence on using the word “nigger” rather than Ni**er,
when quoting someone who originally used that word. Now the NFL
follows suit.
Instead
of firing players who use that word on the field, the team will be
penalized 15 yards for each use. You can bet your black ass that the
first person to use the word will NOT be white.
John
Wooten, head of the
Fritz Pollard Association,
wants the rule extended: “We
want this word to be policed from the parking lot to the equipment
room to the locker room. Secretaries, PR people, whoever, we want it
eliminated completely and want it policed everywhere.” He says.
Guess
who the policing will hurt most. It always does.
-end
