January 24, 2008

Phelps Phamily Phreaks to Protest Heath Ledger’s Funeral

Not like that’s any big surprise. Joke’s on Freddie & Co., ‘though — the Westboro Asshats— er, Baptists have no idea where Ledger’s funeral is to be held, although it would make sense that it would be in the actor’s hometown of Perth… Australia. (Go ahead, Fred! Take the whole damn klan overseas — we’d bet money your psychotic bunch will never get past the good folks of the Australian Customs Service.)

Here’s the story from ABC News:

A fundamentalist church whose members demonstrate at the funerals of soldiers killed in Iraq and believe God hates gays will protest the Academy Awards and the funeral of Heath Ledger, because the actor played a gay cowboy in the 2005 film “Brokeback Mountain.”

Members of the Westboro Baptist Church in Topeka, Kan., are trying to find out where the 28-year-old actor’s funeral will be held and have already made signs to hold outside the Oscars that read “God Hates Fags and Fag Enablers,” “Heath in Hell” and “Mourn for Your Sins,” Shirley Phelps-Roper, daughter of the church’s controversial founder Pastor Fred Phelps, told ABCNEWS.com.

Though Ledger was not gay, the church believes he “misused the giant megaphone given to him by God Almighty to speak the truth about fags,” Phelps-Roper said, and instead “used his position of prominence to say God is a liar and that homosexuality is not an abomination.”

The time and location of the Ledger’s funeral remain unknown, but it is widely believed it will take place in the actor’s native Australia.

“They are going to try and hide the body like a bunch of ghouls so we can’t protest. The only thing in this country people worship more than filthy sex acts is the dead,” Phelps-Roper said.

She said members of the church had already purchased plane tickets to picket outside the Oscars, scheduled for Feb. 24 in Hollywood.

A press release posted to the church’s Web site, godhatesfags.com, reads: “Heath Ledger is now in Hell, and has begun serving his eternal sentence there — besides which, nothing else about Heath Ledger is relevant or consequential.”

We like what the Southern Poverty Law Center’s Mark Potok had to say:

“The group is made up of people who are almost literally out of their minds” … “I doubt there is anyone in America who thinks more about gay sex than Fred Phelps,” Potok said.

Posted by: Sapphocrat