June 16, 2008
SFist Interviews Pastor Fred Phelps, Gets His Take on Same-Sex Marriage
Always up for a round of fair-and-balanced reporting, SFist had the wonderful opportunity this afternoon to speak with Pastor Fred Phelps from the Westboro Baptist Church and ask him a few questions regarding his thoughts on same-sex marriage in California, which is set to be legal today at 5:01 p.m. Phelps is set to hit the steps of City Hall in protest at the same time.
"I don't think he should have defied the law," said Phelps, when asked about Mayor Gavin Newsom's 2004 decision to begin issuing marriage licenses to same-sex couples. "Didn't that already happen? We've discussed this before." Phelps advised that he already issued statements regarding Mayor Newsom and the 2004 same-sex marriages in San Francisco.
We asked about Phelps' feelings about the May 2008 decision by the Supreme Court of California to strike down the California constitutional ban on same-sex marriage. "Same-sex marriage is a done deal. It's a done deal. What will happen to the State of California when it becomes legal? Well, a flood of humanity will come into your state. It will help your strapped state economy," Phelps said, with a chuckle.
"Tim Russert promoted the fag agenda. There are tapes that were released after he died ... tapes showing Russert embracing homosexuality." Fortunately, we got the Pastor back on track by asking about other (alive) celebrities, namely Ellen DeGeneres and George Takei, and whether their marriages will shed a positive or negative light on the issue.
"It doesn't matter. They've been promoting the homosexual agenda for a long time. It does not matter at all," replied Phelps. "Oh, and Obama, and his fag agenda. He's a celebrity too, you know?"
We all had a brief laugh for a moment.
Overall, the Pastor was very pleasant during our interview. He wished us a lovely afternoon as we disconnected the call. We're certain he has a lot on his own agenda for today and we didn't wish to monopolize more of his time.
| 
add to stumble upon
add to reddit
email this
add to facebook
add to del.icio.us
Oh you courteous provocateurs!
What's the point of this interview exactly? Isn't it kind of like asking Hitler what he thinks of the Jewish "agenda"?
You should have asked him what Des Moines did to deserve God's wrath. What a f'head.
Does it bother anyone else how much this son-of-a-bitch and Tom Lantos look alike?
Fred Phelps: ultimate closet case?
closet case? no. well, insofar as skinheads are secretly black or jewish.
Holy cow, he looks like the porn star guy "Max Hardcore", who just lost an obscenity case in FL. K-reepy!
You interviewed him on the phone, Brock?
What's his phone number?
Inquiring minds want to know . . .
Seems kind of senile to me.
What a disgusting human being.
shame on you sfist.
shame shame shame shame
i know you're trying to be balanced like the bigkid media, but let me fill you in on something: THIS GUY DOESN'T NEED ANY MORE VALIDATION.
shame shame shame shame shame
"We're certain he has a lot on his own agenda for today and we didn't wish to monopolize more of his time."
seriously? holy shit sfist, please don't throw yourself under the train for us.
As fucked up and sick as they are, I am glad that Phelps' Church of Nutbags exist. In a time when our politicians actively work to restrict our Constitutional rights, people like Phelps make sure we have the right to be heard. Although even the crazies think he is crazy.
gba, just close your eyes, or stick your head in the sand, count to three and pretend he's not there.
there, feel better now?
@bitz check out 'virgina v. black' http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virginia_v._Black
first amendment, sure, but there is are definitely some tough choices to be made between symbolism and hate.
@brock
1. fred phelps: on every cable news channel ever, now also on sfist.
2. frank chu: hardly on the news, frequently on sfist.
please explain.
one is mentally ill and has the power to affect public thought on homosexuality, thus worthy of an interview to an audience that otherwise likes to keep its head on the sand.
the other, combined with his asian background and zany signage, is mentally ill but amuses the trustifarians of SF ever so.
again, put your head back in your navel and no one will hurt you, angel. shhh, it'll be ok.
The thing about Phelps and company is that he's not just anti-gay, he's anti-America, by his own admission. That fringe is to the right of Pat Robertson. He's so loony and random and contradictory, he makes the right doubt its own position on everything.
Just as I am absolutely convinced that Ann Coulter is really a liberal plant, slowly unfolding her master plan to expose the lunacy and idiocy of the right, I believe that the Phelps clan is just fucking with us. It's all a big joke, guys. They don’t really mean what they say! Mark my words: one day, Fred Phelps will remove the death facemask and reveal himself to be Michael Moore.
very well put, tendernob.
"thus worthy of an interview to an audience that otherwise likes to keep its head on the sand."
ah san francisco, home of gays, bloggers, and elitists.
Oh my. I'm sorry to hear he's mentally ill. That ruins my fantasy.
For the longest time, I've wanted to get creative with the good pastor. Wanted to invite him to some hole-in-the-wall and ply him with drinks, telling him how most of us appreciate his good works, that he truly was the Lord's righteous soldier against wickedness.
Then the plan was to drop 2 or 3 tabs of choice German ecstasy in his Wild Turkey. After the telltale clenching of the jaw, I was going to suggest we journey "into the heart of the beast". Assuming he wasn't recognized at The Cafe (unlikely) I was hoping to take a few pictures, maybe some video for ye olde website. Introduce the fella to some folks.
Is that so wrong?
Please stop giving this child-abusing psychopath the attention he desperately craves.
In Lawrence, Kansas, where I went to journalism school, it never failed that the student paper would interview Fred or a member of the family for an easy grab at readers each semester. I did one years ago. The guy just always delivered up the most outrageous quotes, but at some point people gotta stop giving in. The guy and his delusions get more face time with reporters than all of the Lohans combined. Queer activists in Lawrence used to seek out AIDS research sponsors who would contribute a fixed amount for each minute that he protested publicly. They raised a lot of money that way. Brilliant.
i just want to state for the record that it was like speaking with the pope. it was that important.
He just says out loud what many christians are thinking privately. It's good to expose the hatred. "Like a boil that can never be cured so long as it is covered up but must be opened up with all its ugliness to the natural medicines of air and light, injustice must be exposed, with all the tension its exposure creates, to the light of human conscience and the air of national opinion before it can be cured" - MLK jr.
I was checking out "Who Cares" magazine, and rabid, so-far-to-the-right-they-fall-off-the-flat-earth folks who rabidly hate everyone and everything got a mention in this month's issue.
MLK analogized social injustice to a festering boil? This disturbs me. I must now reconsider his place within the pantheon of my mind.
Anyone who'd try to shut down folks like Fred Phelps is a fool. Phelps and his "posse" are so extreme they do nothing but help the agenda of the Gays. Those who sit on the fence are immensely turned off by him and his message and the other fundie reactionaries shy away lest they be painted with the same brush. Phleps is like one of the best friends the gay "community" has. I wish he and the rest of his church would hang out until November. They'd be a big help in defeating this amendment we're all supposed to vote on.
could one of the journalistic prodigies that keep condoning mr phelps please point me to an example of when hate speech has been productive in society?
anthony lewis made a good point: democratic & free speech are great, but they're experiments. they could fail. if the 'wrong' person gets too much of a following it could lead to a detrimental collapse of the society. such was the case in german, such has been the case elsewhere.
don't get me wrong, i'll be the 1st person to burn a flag on the 4th of july, but i think any of us are smart enough to draw a very distinct & unwavering line between my action and the rhetoric mr phelps spews.
Fred is so Hot!
gba, tl;dr.
gba, so called "hate speech" is a myth and bad for societal discourse. I'm sick of mollycoddling delicate flowers who undoubtedly spent their childhoods sniveling on the playground, ratting out all the mean kids to the nearest adult authority figure. Grow up. People who advocate governmental interference in the marketplace of ideas for the simple reason that it offends are spineless ninnies who have fundamental beef with the very basic principles of our democracy.
Whether or not Phelps's message is "productive" is irrelevant. All speech needs to be productive? BET is unproductive and I don't see anyone hollering for that crap to be yanked off the TV. Regardless, lucky for us, Phelps's message IS productive - it makes the right wing look crazy and stupid. The kind of person who really thinks that "God Hates Fags" is going to think that whether or not Phelps and his band of roving planets with hair stand out their like retards proclaiming it to the whole world. It's the wider body of people who have no opinion one way or the other that are most important in this equation. They see Phelps, they think crazy, and that carries over to his message. Phelps rules and you = Hitler.
@the angry young man
"it makes the right wing look crazy and stupid."
to you and i, perhaps yes, but it also reinforces their belief that their message can & will get out. additionally, it shows his followers (overt or not) that they're "not alone".
i wish one of the networks had the balls to say "no, this man is clearly insane and we're not going to air his inane babble." am i asking too much? methinks yes.
I really disagree with people who say Phelps and his followers are great for LGBT rights. I think he's actually very dangerous, because his extremism allows your garden-variety homophobes and discriminators to excuse their own unacceptable behaviors because, hey, at least they're not as bad as THAT guy. It's like making it okay for someone to say, "I don't like Jews but I'm not an Nazi, so I'm perfectly okay."
Giving him a platform to spew his hate is exactly what he loves most in the world. It's obvious you thought you were being really clever and funny here. You were neither.
@gba/satanic apollonia
Their message can and will get out regardless of whether they get media attention. There are a multitude of ways which people can use to communicate their ideas. I'd rather those ideas be laid out in the open, for the whole world to see, than hidden away in the dark, festering and feeding paranoia and conspiracies. Remember a guy named Timothy McVeigh? Guess what? Blowing shit up is great way to get people's attention.
We don't police people's thoughts in this country. If that's what you dig, you should consider moving to North Korea.
If I were trying to "police people's thoughts," Angry Young Man, then I'd have tried to do something to try to get this post deleted or this site shut down. That's something I would never try to do to begin with, and which the First Amendment wouldn't allow. Raising an objection is a far cry from trying to censor someone. I'm voicing my opinion. If that's not what YOU dig, too bad.
Angry Young Man, your comments to Apollonia are not only silly; they are misguided. Nowhere have I read any remark by Apollonia suggesting that Mr. Phelps is not entitled to freedom of speech. However, you seem to misunderstand what having freedom of speech means.
Freedom of speech is the right to be free from most (though not all) GOVERNMENT restrictions on individual expressions of beliefs and ideas. Mr. Phelps has enjoyed such unrestricted freedom for years, as he has traveled around the country expressing his (crazy) opinions about homosexuality. I am aware of the recent efforts by some states and the federal government to limit his ability to protest at funerals, but such time and place restrictions on speech have been generally permitted in our society in the interest of balancing free speech against other compelling interests, such as the right for others to practice freedom of religion and expression by holding a ceremony to honor loved ones who have passed away. And in Mr. Phelps case, overly broad legal restrictions which some states have tried to impose on him have been rightfully struck down by the courts. In any event, Apollonia has not, as far as I have read, advocated either for or against such protest restrictions. Your comments analogizing Apollonia to Hitler and North Korean police are simply absurd, and you know it.
Freedom of speech does not give anyone the right to be interviewed by a newspaper. There are many news stories out there and it is purely within the discretion of an editor to decide what to report. Apollonia as a reader of this blog, enjoys the freedom to disagree with the editor's choices and to suggest the editor should have chosen differently--there is nothing wrong with holding such opinions. Furthermore, Mr. Phelps is not lacking for media coverage; he is regularly shown on television and mentioned in the news, so I don't really buy the argument that SFist is merely trying to be "fair and balanced." Rather, SFist is engaging in "yellow" journalism, and its creators certainly have the right to do so. However, Apollonia and other readers of this blog have the right to call SFist out on its editorial choices. THAT my friend, is free speech in action.
appollonia:
I disagree. Attempts to rob people of all means of disseminating their opinions is an attempt to police the thoughts of others by depriving them of information. While chiding this blog for posting an interview with him isn't the same thing as demadning it be taken down, I have no doubts that you're the kind of person who would totally do so if you had the power. I mean, look at the way you're freaking out over MY opinion. Am I not allowed to an opinion of my own? Apparently not in HELL.
The best way to deal with someone like Phelps is to give him as much attention as possible. His ideas are so warped and ridiculous that he'd do himself and his cause far more damage by expounding upon them in a public forum - where free discourse can take place - than driving them underground, where little if any discussion on his points can occur. Phelps is the kind of man you can expect to hang himself with his own rope.
By the way, when I say "public forum" I'm not talking about SFist (which is not, in fact, a public forum). That disclaimer is for the benefit of Crustaceous.
Crustaceous
First, I'm a graduate of a top tier law school and while I'll be the first to admit that I'm not always in a legal frame of mind, I'm scratching my head over your well written remedial lecture on free speech guarantees as relates to Phelps's funeral pickets. I never analogized Apollonia the Satan to Hitler or the North Korean police. On the contrary, I equated gba to Hitler for no reason in particular and suggested to both of them that if they like the idea of policing people's thoughts, they should move to North Korea. Neither one of these statements is an analogy of any kind. Furthermore, this is the first time I've seen mention of Phelps's funeral pickets in this thread. My issue is with attempts to characterize Phelps's pickets as "hate speech" for purposes of restricting it. This is only tangentially related to the point you're making regarding balancing free speech against other compelling interests. Last time I checked, protecting some whiney drama queen's feelings by making sure nutters don't holler mean names in public is not a compelling interest. Throw in the potential for a full on drag queen riot, and maybe the equation will change. In general, however, no. Therefore, you are out of control.
Second, huh? Where did I ever say that freedom of speech gives people people the right to be interviewed by a news outlet? While I'd agree that she's most certainly entitled to one, I don't care one way or the other about Satanic Apple's opinion. Excluding Brock's complete lack of respect for people's privacy rights and his dumb decision to post an entry about that fat looking Jameth's nasty photo taking habits, I don't care about Sfist's editorial policy (I'd be totally shocked to learn that they even have an editorial policy). What I care about are attempts to shut Phelps's public actions down by labeling them "hate speech." I'm talking abstracts here, maybe that's where the disconnect lies. Your entire second paragraph bears absolutely no relevance to anything I've ever written anywhere in my entire life ever. All the same, thanks for sharing.
I'm freaking out? No, I'm disagreeing with you. You're the one who's freaking out. And I don't see much point in arguing with you further.
Satan Apple, it's a shame that you are so intolerant of people whose opinions differ from your own. You will find in life that people are pretty diverse, with divergent viewpoints. Unless, of course, you're a bear. Your life will be happier if you learn to accept differences between people. Good luck on facing your personal challenge there.
http://xxxchurch.com/blogs/interns/pornmobilecontroversythevideo.html
check out this crazy church with a 30ft tall inflatable male sex organ they use for witnessing, they are interviewed on 700 club and TBN,,like nothing is wrong,, duh!