Westboro Leader In Interview Justifies Picketing Of Soldiers' Funerals

The Huffington Post on Friday carried an interview by investigative reporter Joshua Kors of Pastor Fred Phelps of the Westboro Baptist Church in which Phelps justifies his group's confrontational picketing of veterans' funerals and other venues. Here are a few excerpts:

Phelps: The mission of the church is to preach to a doomed world, to let them know about the second coming of Jesus. It's not going to be pretty. Look at the world of Noah. In his day there were 12 to 16 billion people on Earth, and only eight got out of that flood alive. The world is going to be devoured by fire. ...

The message we have is simple: the sodomites have taken over the country, and this country has given itself over to immorality. We want to warn the nation, let them know that God is not going to let this country get by with that kind of degeneracy. So what's the right forum to preach that message?

Kors: People would say funerals are not the right forum. And why soldiers' funerals?

Phelps: Soldiers' funerals are the right place. The Lord has killed him. The soldier shouldn't be there dead. But this is the God that delivered ten different plagues -- and nothing worked. So here we are....

Kors: What happens to homosexuals when they die?

Phelps: These fags are going to hell. And I'm supposed to be quiet about that? I'm supposed to get lockjaw? The Bible's just full of hell, the wrath of God.

Kors: On TV, in movies, hell is always portrayed as full of flames and snakes.

Phelps: That's right. Hell is the place where the worm eats on fags, and the fire is never quenched. Indescribable pain. The Lord Jesus said that. And he knows because he's had a front row seat since the creation of Adam. What you need to do is get a Bible and look up Luke, Chapter 16. These fags are going to hell, and instead of squawking like crybabies, they ought to be so thankful that at no expense to them, we've dedicated time and resources to preach to them. People say we're "disturbing the peace." Don't you understand: we've done 40,000 of these pickets, and we'd be in jail if we were disturbing the peace.