Hateful Pastor Distorts Christianity
by Mark Tooley
You may not recognize his name, but you almost certainly have seen him and his followers on television. Invariably, at some event tied to homosexuality, however obscurely, Fred Phelps is there with his small flock. Their placards and their chants proclaim a single message: “God hates fags.”
Phelps protested at the funeral of Matthew Shepard, the young homosexual murdered in Wyoming. He has demonstrated at a recent spate of homosexual “weddings” conducted by United Methodist clergy (against their own church law) in Chicago and Sacramento. He protested at the funerals of Sony Bono, Frank Sinatra, Barry Goldwater, and Bill Clinton’s mother, all of whom Phelps targeted as proponents of homosexuality.
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Mark Tooley directs the United Methodist committee of the Institute on Religion and Democracy (www.ird-renew.org) in Washington, D.C.
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