That's right. The extreme religious right is now protesting at
military funerals. Everyone on the right is so hot to get the religious right on their side; however, they also consider themselves the military's political party. So, how do you reconcile this, Republicans? The face of the religious right isn't smiling and friendly, as you'd have us believe; it's ugly, sneering and hateful, as evidenced by this indefensible story from the
Seattle Post-Intelligencer (emphasis mine):
A Kansas preacher and gay rights foe whose congregation is protesting military funerals around the country said he's coming to Idaho tomorrow to picket the memorial for an Idaho National Guard soldier killed in Iraq.
A flier on the Web site of Pastor Fred Phelps' Westboro Baptist Church claims God killed Cpl. Carrie French with an improvised explosive device in retaliation against the United States for a bombing at Phelps' church six years ago.
"We're coming," Phelps said yesterday.
Westboro Baptist either has protested or is planning protests of other public funerals of soldiers from Michigan, Alabama, Minnesota, Virginia and Colorado. A protest is planned for July 11 at Dover Air Force Base, the military base where war dead are transported before being sent on to their home states.
Phelps gained national notoriety in 1998 when he picketed the funeral of Matthew Shepard, the gay college student beaten to death in Wyoming.
Since then, Phelps said his church has been the target of hateful words and actions, including a bomb attack six years ago.
Phelps' church has picketed the funerals of AIDS victims for more than a decade.
French, 19, was a Caldwell High School graduate and varsity cheerleader. She was killed June 5 in the northern city of Kirkuk. French served as an ammunition specialist with the 116th Brigade Combat Team's 145th Support Battalion.
Phelps said the fact that French led an all-American life gives him all the more reason to picket her final public tribute.
"An all-American girl from a society of all-American heretics," he said.
"Our attitude toward what's happening with the war is the Lord is punishing this evil nation for abandoning all moral imperatives that are worth a dime," Phelps said.
I always hear the ultra-religious going on and on about their personal knowledge of Satan and his many evil doings. That they apparently fail to recognize the most evil of evils in demagogues like Phelps and organizations like the Westboro Baptist Church is beyond me. And where are the likes of Rush Limbaugh, Bill O'Reilly and the 101st Fighting Keyboarders when someone like Phelps obviously isn't supporting our troops? The silence is deafening.