I Thought Only Liberals Hated the Troops?

Attention Right Wingers: Shine up your Patriot Police badges for this one. Your tireless pursuit of troop-haters has finally lead you to this golden nugget. I've actually discovered a group that really does hate the troops.

Turns out they’re Conservative Christians, just like your annoying born-again cousin from Tampa!

I know, I know. It’s the fanatical Muslims we have to worry about. For the most part, I don’t disagree. After all, in the past decade the fanatical Muslims have taken the lead in slaughtering more innocent people than fanatical Christians (must to the dismay of the white Christian Klansmen of the 20th Century. And the Christians in Northern Ireland. And guys like Eric Rudolph. And born-again president who looked to Jesus for guidance before invading Iraq). You’d have to be an idiot to deny that there isn’t a major fundamentalist, right wing sect of Islam that is impacting the entire global community.

However, right-wing fundamentalists are right-wing fundamentalists. How they behave and act out their insane fundamentalist message has much more to do with economic conditions than it does with anything relating to the core beliefs of the religion itself. In other words, if everyone followed the modern interpretation of the major organized religions, no one would be killing anyone, right?

Enter conservative Christian and ordained minister of the Westboro Baptist Church, Rev. Fred Phelps. He’s also proprietor of the charming web site, GodHatesFags.com.

You may remember Phelps’ group in the news several years back when they graced the funeral of Matthew Sheppard with hand-made signs denouncing him and his sexual orientation. Because after all, nothing is more Christian than shoving hand made signs that depicts Sheppard burning in hell in the faces of the parents who just lost their young son.

In the latest episode of “Where Are They Now?” played by the who’s-who of the right wing, we find the fellowship at the Baptist Church - I can hardly write this – actually protesting at funerals of American soldiers killed in action, while a biker group is doing their part to shut them up.

From CNN:

(Westboro Baptist Church leader, Rev) Phelps believes American deaths in Iraq
are divine punishment for a country that he says harbors homosexuals. His protesters carry signs thanking God for so-called IEDs -- explosives that are a major killer of soldiers in Iraq.

"The scriptures are crystal clear that when God sets out to punish a nation, it is with the sword. An IED is just a broken-up sword," Phelps-Roper said. "Since that is his weapon of choice, our forum of choice has got to be a dead soldier's funeral."

…A band of motorcyclists rolls around the country from one soldier's funeral to another, cheering respectfully to overshadow jeers from church protesters. They call themselves the Patriot Guard Riders, and they are more than 5,000 strong, forming to counter anti-gay protests held by the Rev. Fred Phelps at military funerals.

Now – of course this group from the Westboro Church doesn’t represent the vast majority of religious people or their beliefs – and you know what? Neither does bin Laden.

And that’s my entire point. All faiths have had a minority of its membership represent and twist the representation and overall message of that faith into something completely unrelated to anything the religion actually preaches. Whether it’s al-Zawahiri justifying a car bomb via the Koran, Eric Rudolph blowing up a planned Parenthood because that’s how Jesus would have wanted it, or Rev. Phelps picketing a funeral because “it says so in this here Bible God ain’t fond of fags,” it underscores the fact that radical faith of any kind leads all kinds of issues, and any one can take any passage in any book of faith and interpret it to what they believe.

That's why I'm just as hard on radical Christianity as I am the extreme interpretation of Islam.

Sound like a “Jerry Springer final thought?” Perhaps. But then next time you think what people struggle through, all around the world, from war to justice to genocide, think about the source. Think about where the early teaching, predispositions, and hatred comes from - not the religion itself, but a small group of it's followers.