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The Brooklyn Paper reports that members of the Westboro Baptist Church — famous for their "God Hates Fags" and "Thank God For 9/11" signs — will be in Park Slope this Saturday to harass the Sabbath services at Congregation Beth Elohim. This isn't their first time in NYC— they visited the West Village earlier this year. The synagogue is being targeted as part of a concerted effort to begin protesting Jewish organizations for such sins as tolerance of homosexuality and of course, killing Jesus.
The independent church from Topeka, KS calls itself baptist but is not affiliated with any formal Baptist denomination. They have brought their one-ring hate-circus to military funerals, churches, and even Billy Graham. They had a nice little pr campaign against the revivalist, saying "Billy is a lying whore: just like a whore, he'll give you what you want, if you pay him."
How do you think that kind of message will fly in Brooklyn?
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These folks are real charmers
The word "church" needs to be scrapped from references to this group and changed to "Fred Phelps' demon spawn."
It's sad that they're filled with so much hate.
Please quit giving media exposure to these clowns.
amen.
You are absolutely correct - they will disappear all on their own.
They haven't yet. After like, 20 years.
My tongue was placed firmly in cheek. I am one of those people who realize that ignoring them won't do a thing, so with glee I make fun of them.
Maybe this whole Phelps thing is one huge performance art piece that's been going on for years. It's just too much... no one can really be like this. It's slightly less tolerable than Criss Angel.
I was bar mitzvahed at Beth Elohim. I'd like to say more but I'm currently distracted by this week's new American Apparel girl in the striped bodysuit.
arguably not as attractive as last week's.
Agreed, JenChungsBra, that girl is ridiculously hot and quite a distraction. But doesn't make me want to buy anything from A.A.
Why does it look like she was lured off a playground with promises of free candy?
I can't see her, I am blinded by the ENDLESS FLASHING Bloomberg ads.
It looks like a great opportunity for setting up protest sign mocking photos...or at least supersoakers.
These people are clearly mentally ill, probably from in-breeding. I don't mean that facetiously or in a big-city-snob kind of way either. Anyway, don't let that stop anyone from trying to paint anyone with a conservative viewpoint with the same brush as these loonies.
Thanks for putting "Christians" in quotes. These nuts may call themselves that but they are not.
Protesting outside of a religious ceremony is a dick-move. However, these people have no boundaries...
is the girl holding the sign that says "god's rod" saying that god is going to fuck us all with his omnipotent penis?
sounds Rapturous!!
These people need to be aborted.
FIGHT, FIGHT, FIGHT!!!
Too bad it's during the High Holy days, or there coulda been a good brawl, bu no they have to do it while we're on our best behavior, i dare em to come back in a month!
That's exactly what they're trying to provoke- they want nothing more than to be "attacked" by Jews. Best defense is to ignore them.
Actually, the best counterpunch I've seen is two gay guys making out, I mean really going at it, right in front of a man with a "God Hates Fags" sign.
Ok Seven, i see your point.
So any other good looking ladies on here wanna meet up saturday and make out?? :-)
This is one serious fringe group. Saying shit about dead soldiers and IEDs as well as comments on homosexuality is a surefire way to be hated by all sides right quick.
I wouldn't be surprised if this group were actually anti-Christian maybe even athiests, posing as homophobic hateful Christians, in order to turn people off from God, church, spirituality, etc. Political and religious subterfuge is not new but many people do not consider it when lunatics like this show up.
I think real Christian groups should counter-picket them, saying they do not represent anything remotely Christian.
Atheists have no interest in doing things like this, we aren't anti-Christian - we just don't believe in god. There's a huge difference between the two.
This is one serious fringe group. Saying shit about dead soldiers and IEDs as well as comments on homosexuality is a surefire way to be hated by all sides right quick.
Sorry for the DP.
Any true Christian accepts that the Jews are God's chosen people and that Jesus was one of them. Anti-semitism is about as unChristian as you can get. If fire and brimstone are going to rain down on anybody, it will be on these dopes.
"Anti-semitism is about as unChristian as you can get"
Wow, that is the most naive, ill-informed statement I've heard in a long time. While, yes, in the last 50 years or so, many Christian denominations have distance themselves from past doctrine and made some strides in their relationships with Jews, for the first roughly 1,950 years of Christianity, anti-Semitism was a fundamental part of being a Christian. Until Vatican Council II, Catholics prayed for "perfidious Jews" on Good Friday, and held Jews guilty of the highest crime imaginable: Deicide (the murder of god).
Yeah, no anti-semitism in Christianity. Man, you need to open a history book once in a while.
The Good Friday Prayer was composed in the Middle Ages.
"pro perfidis judaeis" in the Good Friday liturgy does not connote the Modern English meaning of "perfidious" but rather "faithless, unfaithful, non-believer", i.e. most Jews did not believe that Jesus was the Messiah. It was a prayer praying FOR the salvation of the Jews, not AGAINST them.
Now, in Modern English, perfidious has a different connotation.
Better brush up on your Latin before you spread further misinformation.
Nonsense. "Infidelis" means without faith in Latin. "Non credentes" or "increduli" would also work. "Perfidus" means treacherous, hostile to faith. Dido uses it as an insult for Aeneas. It's not a neutral word in Latin. Et TE oportet discere tuam Latinam, mi amice.
Online dictionaries give several meanings for perfidus. Some prefer your translation, some prefer mine.
http://latinlexicon.org/definition.php?p1=1161786&p2=p
= perfidus: promise-breaking, faithless, dishonest, treacherous, perfidious
http://www.archives.nd.edu/cgi-bin/lookit.pl?latin=perfidus
= perfidia : treachery, faithlessness
So, I'll leave it up to you to decide which connotation of perfidus the Fathers of the Church intended.
Since it is widely accepted that the coming of Christ was the fulfillment of the promise of the Old Testament, I think 'promise-breaker' would be a far more apt translation than 'treacherous', wouldn't you agree? Judas was treacherous; the Jews weren't.
Oh, and in Catholicism, Jews are the "chosen people" only inasmuch as they were the vehicle by which god would reveal his true self to humanity through Jesus. The minute they rejected Jesus and continued practicing Judaism, they ceased to be "chosen people" in Christian doctrine.
** I'm an atheist, I don't believe any of this shit, but don't try to paint Christianity as somehow Jewish friendly. Individual Christians certainly can be, but Christianity and Judaism are fundamentally oppositional outlooks and belief systems. They are defined by the rejection and repudiation of each other. Don't try to sugar coat things.
Religion is all such bullshit!!!
They are not protesting Jews per se... it's about a protesting a synagogue "for such sins as tolerance of homosexuality". They always find a way to make it about homosexuality. They are obsessed with it! I think Fabulous Fred is so trapped in the closet he's finding christmas presents.
If these fucking nut jobs are so thankful for IED's then maybe this Saturday someone might be so kind as to place a few in the area of their ignorant fucking protest circle and we can watch as they fucking get blown to shit.....worthless fucking excuse for human beings is what they are!!!
I'd like to see them try this at a South Williamsburg synagogue.
The Jews killed Christ? For the longest time I thought the Italians did.
Well it wasn't exactly politically expedient for early Christians to accuse the Roman empire of executing their savior, so instead they blamed the middle east's go-to scapegoats: the Jews.
Also: Billy Graham's not dead yet.
Perhaps the intent was to note that Franklin Graham has taken over his father's work and Billy is now retired.
So where are the "free speech zones" and cops wrapping up protesters in orange snow fencing when clowns like this show up?
If anyone can handle this group with intelligence and civility, it is Rabbi Andy Bachman.
Here's how he handles the anticipated incident on his blog:
http://www.andybachman.com/
I'm straight...but have half a mind to find some random guy to make out with in front of these people. That strikes me as the best response -- big gay makeout sessions. (Might even show them God's rod.) That would give them something to scream about, but nothing that lets them be the victim. (Oh, what, you little cry-babies had to see some people kissing? Oh, call the wah-bulance.)
By the way -- Fred Phelps's son wrote about his life with them, before he escaped. It's really chilling. It's clear that this family's "religion" has almost nothing to do with religion, and everything to do with profit and exposure. From the story, Phelps apparently beat the crap out of his children and wife, had them robbing houses, and generally acted like a sociopath even before becoming faux-religous. The "religion" part of it is just a tool for saying and doing horrible things, and making money.
@thespis:
Straight or gay, the community should respect the dignity of the temple and the Sabbath and refrain from any vocal or physical responses to these crazies. Read Rabbi Bachman's blog entry on the subject. In particular, realize that a Bat Mitzvah will be taking place at the temple this Saturday. Nothing should interfere with the young lady's enjoyment of the day and her ability to reach this milestone with her family and friends.
So a "joke" is this thing that you say that's...ah, never mind.
For the record, I'm not kissing any dudes -- on this Saturday or on any Saturday, in front of a synagogue or anywhere else. (Although I assume, of course, that the synagogue would complain about such a thing only because it would be in poor taste to make out publicly, and not because of the sexuality of the people involved.)
But I still think it would be hilarious.
You're absolutely right! They should be protesting veterans' funerals instead!
(The above is for entertainment purposes only and does nothing to serve anything to the sanctimonious.)
If these Baptist people had any brains they would protest outside of B&H Photo on Saturday afternoon.
No, B&H is closed on Saturday... Shabbat!
The traditional Christian anti-semitism is founded on the outrage of Jews in ancient Judea handing Jesus Christ to Roman authorities for his execution. All history and textual disputes aside, the outrage is theologically absurd. If Jesus was brought into existence, as the human embodiment of God, for the purpose of washing away the sins of the world with his blood, then the Jews in question were fulfilling God's will. An omnipotent and omniscient diety would know the fate of his own divine plan. If you reason within the confines of Christian thought, God chose the Jews to send one of their own to his death. Even the hated Judas was complicit only in fulfilling the intentions of God, and if not for the betrayal of Jesus, Christianity wouldn't exist! But the religion doesn't really make a whole lot of sense.
Nice to read something here that is accurate.
Jesus had to be delivered over by His people to fulfill the prophecies of the Old Testament. It is almost Calvinistic in its concept of pre-destination.
Christian outrage at the Jews was a result of people who didn't know much about their own theology, but just misread the New Testament in a simplistic manner. This is to be expected in an age before the mass-produced Guttenberg Bibles and mass education.
It's a fairy tale. Don't take it so seriously.
The operant belief system of a billion people should probably be taken seriously, especially when its adherents occasionally murder, terrorize, and persecute based on it.
no, religion and nationalism is used to justified these acts done for money and power and not for God or Nation.
Well now I'm not sure what you are talking about. Apply the things you said to a typical 19th century Russian pogrom, then try again.
Jigga what?
No it's not.
I've always thought the same thing. Seems strange to hate the Jews for facilitating what, according to doctrine, needed to be done in order to save the world.
It's all very silly.
I hope they all get hurt.
I may take a ride down there on Saturday & get arrested. Don't these "Christians" have jobs to go to?? GO BACK HOME!!
Do they have jobs?
Certainly not! You can thank Oba'Mammy for that! ;-)
What?
Don't you know? The massive jobs losses that began under Bush are entirely Obama's fault.
Oh, I see. The Phelps family has not held jobs in 20 years because of Obama. Man, he's been busy since he was born in Kenya, raised Muslim and lived in a pineapple under the sea.
I may not agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it while simultaneously pelting you with rotting fruit.
Wow, never thought they would come to NYC. If anyone needs to end up in the east river swimming with the fishes its this group. I'm hoping they meet their demise here in the "mean streets". Send them on to 'heaven" where they can see the big rod in person.
I think they've been here before. And the mom and daughters used to appear on Howard Stern pretty frequently.
I think they've been here before. And the mom and daughters used to appear on Howard Stern pretty frequently.
These guys do not represent Christianity in the least bit.
Nor does Osama Bin Laden represent Islam. They and all the followers of religion are basically hoping they wont die and end up in nowheresville.
UGH, These are the kind of of so called "Christians" that would stone Jesus just because he would have told them to LOVE and not hate.
Perhaps a minor point, Billy Graham is not the "late revivalist". He's still alive at 90.
He might be alive, but none of his revivals ever started on time.
Coincidence? I think not.
God has truly blessed these people...with a 1987 Ford Aerostar van.
Louis Theroux followed these people around for a bit - I think it was for his Weird Weekend program. What nuts they are.
These guys may not represent Christianity, but they most definitely "represented Brown in the Brown vs. Board of Ed case.
The Phelps family has alot of lawyers in it. For your own sake, don't attack them. You will get sued.
Agreed; you may be legally right, but they're not worth NYC's time. Best thing to do is just show reinforcing support for the synagogue and, if you're into it, gay make-outs in front of the protest.
Can the big gay ice cream truck cater the protest?
Yes but they are all disbarred or irreputable lawyers, are they not? Did you ever hear about how Fred himself was disbarred? Quite a story. He is clearly mentally ill.
I'll tell you exactly why Phelps picked Beth Eloheim rather than a more popular synagogue like Temple Emannuel or Park Ave.
It's Chuck Schumer's synagogue. Has been his whole life.
The only surprise is that Phelps isn't protesting on Yom Kippur morning (when Chuck is in the building). The only thing going on Saturday afternoon is some girl's Bat Mitzvah.
You have to read the Phelps story written by one of his sons with the assistance of another...they are separate from the family. It is fascinating...Fred Phelps is even more evil than Charles Manson...gripping read...anyone have a url/link????
Titus 1:16 They claim to know God but by their actions they deny Him.