Jack Ass of The Week

This week's moron is "Reverend" Fred Phelps, the stridently anti-gay preacher who has made a career forgetting that Jesus thought love and forgiveness, but not homosexuality, were worth actually mentioning during his 33 years on the planet. This guy made national news when he had the poor taste to protest Matthew Shepard's homosexuality at the trial of the two men who beat Shepard to death for being gay.


Can you feel the love?

Now Phelps would like to use the 1st Amendment to bully Casper, Wyoming into letting him put up a "monument" on public property commemorating Shepard's "entrance into Hell" on the day Shepard died from his injuries at the hands of his assailants.

The kicker, of course, is that Phelps isn't even from Casper. Back in the south, a jerk from somewhere else that causes trouble for the locals is referred to as a "carpetbagger". I'd officially like to dust that euphemism off and tattoo it to this schmuck's forehead. That town has tried very hard to keep Shepard's murder (which horrified the majority of its residents) from being all that the rest of the world knows it for. Apparently, treating others with respect isn't part of Phelps' version of Christianity.

Some outraged residents have let it be known that if he puts this monument to his own avarice up, someone might use a sledgehammer to remove it. Now that's what I call civic pride. Phelps has said that if the monument is vandalized, he'll demand that the city of Casper provide 24 hour surveillance of it to protect his right to free speech. I'd normally say something acerbic here about the guy, but I'm dumbfounded that someone can actually not know he's making that big of a fool out of himself. Never let it be said that persistence and intelligence are the same thing. So, Fred: Jesus loves you, but the rest of us think you're a jackass.