Recent news of Fred Phelps’ passing presents a rather puzzling issue for us morally-minded individuals.
The founder of the Westboro Baptist Church spent most of his lifetime promoting hate, as he and his church members picketed funerals of soldiers and other individuals to spread their anti-gay activism. Indeed, once news of it became public, overwhelming hate began to crawl out of the woodwork. Many people tweeted on the topic, hoping he was in pain, saying that we should picket his funeral.
This reaction is hardly surprising. After all, Phelps did nothing but spread hate during his life, isn’t it only fair we get to return the favor? At the same time, however, this response leaves us with a bit of an empty feeling. Here we are, hating a man whose lifeblood was hatred. He craved attention his entire life in the most despicable way possible, and we’re only happy to give it to him.
Additionally, there is a more troubling problem with this reaction. While it’s difficult to really blame people for celebrating his death, does it really help anything? In essence, we are being hateful to stop the perpetuation of hate. It simply doesn’t work.
If anything, there is some comfort to be found in the knowledge that Phelps can no longer preach his message. Regardless, for us to celebrate this fact with more hate, no matter how justified we believe it to be, makes us no better than him.
Instead I think we ought to forgive and forget. Freedom of speech is a right every American has come to expect. With that right comes occasional wickedness such as the Westboro Baptist Church; this is simply an inevitability. If ignoring them is not an option, then at least they must be tolerated. In an ironic way, Phelps often helped bring out the best in people. The more he preached, the more people were likely to believe the opposite.
Phelps’ inflammatory remarks brought nothing but pain and suffering to a lot of people. It would be a crime then if we were to continue his tradition by acting exactly how he would have wanted us to. I believe Star Trek actor George Takei’s response to this situation sums it up excellently:
“I take no solace or joy in this man’s passing. We will not dance upon his grave, nor stand vigil at his funeral holding ‘God Hates Freds’ signs, tempting as it may be. He was a tormented soul, who tormented so many. Hate never wins out in the end. It instead goes always to its lonely, dusty end.”
People like Fred Phelps thrive on attention. His life’s work was dedicated to getting a rise out of people. The more we let him get to us, the more successful he was. Though it’s a tall order for most of us, we must work to ignore him and understand that retaliation is worthless. While there are many emotions Phelps’ death should evoke, happiness is not one of them.
Fred Phelps spent a lot of his life hating the world, and for that I pity him. The man did his best to embody hate, let us work to eradicate it.