God Hates The World
ByThe gay bashing Westboro Baptist Church has found a novel way of pissing off America.
Not content with picketing soldiers’ funerals, waving banners claiming American deaths are god’s punishment for tolerating homosexuality, they have taken one of the most goodhearted song of the past generation and given it an evil twist.
“God Hates The World” is a parody of the song “We Are The World” that raised about $50 million for famine relief in the 1980s. In the new version, Westboro Baptist congregants cheerfully sing about the world’s sins and mankind’s impending doom:
“God hates the world and all her people, you, every one, face a fiery day for your proud sinning. It’s too late to change His mind, you lived out your vain lives, storing up God’s wrath for all eternity.”
Needless to say, Warner/Chappel Music, which holds the rights to the song, has written to the Church threatening legal action. But the Church has countered that the song is a parody and is protected under First Amendment rights of freedom of speech and religious expression.
Shirley Phelps-Roper, church attorney and daughter of Wesboro pastor, the Rev. Fred Phelps Sr., told BusinessWeek, “It’s all our effort to deliver a faithful message to this generation.”
“WBC will preach at the memorial service of the corpulent false prophet Jerry Falwell, who spent his entire life prophesying lies and false doctrines like ‘God loves everyone,’” says a message on the church’s website godhatesamerica.com.
“Falwell warmly praised Christ-rejecting Jews, pedophile-condoning Catholics, money-grubbing compromisers, practicing fags like Mel White, and backsliders like Billy Graham and Robert Schuler, etc.”
Weekly services at the church in Topeka, Kansas, must be a blast.
(Cross posted at Anorak.)
15 Comments
May 19th, 2007 at 12:44 pm
God, they just won’t quit, will they? They were known in the newsroom I used to work in (and many others, I’m sure) for their outrageous faxes sent at 3 or 4 a.m. — with no return address, of course. Insane.
Great blog, by the way.
May 19th, 2007 at 6:41 pm
Thanks Fayola, pdb.
May 20th, 2007 at 1:48 am
Who are these people? I imagine they are a tiny cult of people comprised of one very large inbred family. If they weren’t so offensive I would think it was all a joke.
May 20th, 2007 at 3:12 pm
Me too. There is an Onion-like quality to the Church and its activities, and by taking Christian teachings to the extreme I think they do sterling work in the service of agnosticism and aetheism.
May 21st, 2007 at 8:20 am
Louis Theroux did a show on these guys, they are madder than a box of frogs.
May 21st, 2007 at 11:07 am
They’re pretty quick to invoke the First Amendment for America-haters.
May 21st, 2007 at 7:00 pm
I love freedom of expression. But when does “fighting words” come into play with First Amendment rights with this cult? If these people showed up at someone’s funeral who I loved, I would have to kill them.
May 23rd, 2007 at 3:50 am
Google: LOVING GOD’S HATE, to learn the truth about these Christo-fascists. This expose is by the Topeka Capitol-Journal, Phelps’ hometown newspaper.
A few of the many shocking items in this expose: several of Phelps’ estranged children publicly assert they were severely and frequently abused by Phelps; the details of Phelps’ disbarment by the Kansas Supreme Court and the Federal Courts for repeated ethics violations; the details of Phelps’ electronic vendetta against public officials he dislikes; the details of a successful lawsuit against Phelps by a candy vendor who was owed more than $5,000. The Phelps children were made to sell the candy door to door until late into the evening and in bad weather, according to the expose.
Although the expose has been on the Phelps website for years, and though several of Phelps’ children are attorneys, Phelps has never sued the Capitol-Journal for libel.
Why not, Fred?
May 26th, 2007 at 11:09 pm
Well now, The owner of the music rights (not the lyrics) should have a cause of action. I do not think this is a parody. And where are the RIAA? Bringing action to your kids for downloading intellectual property. Litigate children.
May 27th, 2007 at 12:32 pm
REV PHELPS should read JOHN 3:16. He and his people should not be so pleased that the people they object to are on their way to a lost eternity. They need to be SALT and LIGHT in this world and obey Christ’s commission in MARK 16:15.
Their example should be Christ who WEPT over Jerusalem (LUKE 19:41).JOY is more rightly reserved for the repentant sinner – LUKE 15:7. Teaching that little girl at the end to hate is despicable and totally against PROVERBS
22:6. Both these people and those whom they hate need our PRAYERS.
April 8th, 2008 at 2:14 pm
As an evangelical Christian, all I can say is that these folks are Satanist worshippers. I don’t care whose name they invoke; their fruit is the standard they’re to be judged by, and their fruit is pure hate. Of course, according to them I’m goin’ ta hell, so I *would* say they are Satanists. Yes, and if they show in Chicago to picket — for any reason — I’ll try hard to rally a bunch of folks to counter-demonstrate.
July 12th, 2009 at 5:12 am
I’m an atheist, so the statement “God hates the world” offends me as much as the statement “unicorns hate the world”. It has no meaning, so these people are just silly to me.
Actually, the statement “God loves the world” would be more offensive to me, because it would be inaccurate. With all the pain in the world, the statement “God hates the world” would be closer to the truth if the word “God” made any sense.
September 3rd, 2009 at 6:33 am
:O !!! What the HELL did they do to Michael Jackson’s BEAUTIFUL MUSIC!??!!!
October 8th, 2009 at 6:11 am
what a fuckin bunch of pathetic losers. does the word ‘brainwashed’ come to anyone’s mind?
January 7th, 2010 at 2:02 pm
But Matthew, unicorns are very real! Like, seriously, how can you not believe in Unicorns? They are mentioned in so many books!!