Im reading a lot of updates and blogs responding to the death of Fred Phelps. I can understand the anger, and the relief, and even the celebration. But I think we may be missing an important point. Fred Phelps was not a supernatural monster. He was a human, who did not so much create hate as direct the hate that was already there. Phelps didnt do anything on his own. Everything his ministry did depended on hundreds of people choosing to do what he said to do. The choices of those people depended on a particular combination of illiteracy and Biblical literalism, which in turn is entangled with a culture where hate and violence are considered valid responses to those who are different; with a culture that considers abusing children to be a lesser evil than allowing them to be different from their parents. Lets not celebrate the death of a human, who was not so special after all. Lets celebrate the silencing of one voice of a larger hate, and dedicate ourselves to dismantling our societys acceptance of hate, abuse, and violence that makes demagogues like Phelps possible. Share this far and wide, if you think it deserves it.
Posted on: Thu, 20 Mar 2014 18:48:13 +0000
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