A challenge to Westboro Church (The Phelps Clan)

We went two counties over today to help form a human shield around a church where funeral was being held for a soldier who was killed in Afghanistan. The psycho-Phelps clan, aka the Westboro Church, out of some unfortunate town in Kansas, had promised to picket this funeral as they have done other military funerals. We went to be part of the human shield to keep the Phelpses from disrupting the funeral.

The town of Seymour, MO advertises a population of 1,605 on its city limits signs. There were probably double that lining the roads to the church, the drive up to the church and the entry to the church. Hundreds of flags, signs and motorcycles, which were silent long before the mourners arrived. As they arrived, the thousand(s) went silent, and remained silent for the duration of the funeral ceremony inside the church and the military ceremony outside.

It is an awe striking vision, thousands of absolutely silent people, standing in the freezing weather, forming a shield around a mourning church. The silence lasted the length of the service, roughly an hour. During that time, a single complaining child could be heard blocks away. Very occasional whispering between members of groups standing as shields. Mostly silence.

Before the ceremony, three Blackhawk choppers flew over in formation just above treetop level over the crowd. Incredible, the gut thumping that those machines produce when they are so close. They rose into the distance and were gone. The silence continued.

The Phelpses didn’t show, according to the two cops I spoke to afterward. I knew that they had also threatened to dirty up the funerals in Tucson, Arizona, at roughly the same time. However, they are even more cowardly than they were in the past; they also didn’t show up in our town 18 months ago, when our own slain soldier was buried.

The challenge to Westboro Baptist Church is just this: if you don’t like homosexuality, then go into the heart of San Francisco and pull your stupidity there – see what that gets you. This is not my idea, but was heard several times before the event today. I personally wish that the Phelps clan would just stay home, all eleven of them. And stay silent. Silence is awesome.