Date: Sat, 23 Sep 1995 17:37:47 -0500
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From: kevyn@KSUVM.KSU.EDU (Kevyn Jacobs) Subject: (PHELPS) NT Editorial: The Meaning of Fred Sender: owner-kqn%vector.casti.com@KSUVM.KSU.EDU Precedence: bulk

FROM THE NEWS-TELEGRAPH
SEPTEMBER 8-21, 1995
==========================

The Meaning Of The Reverend Fred Phelps Sr. 

by Zachary Lowe

Zipping across it in a car it is easy to underestimate Kansas. Its breadth and scope. The expansive beauty of its landscape tumbling away in hazy swells, spilling out a complex palette of greens, purples and blues. No, what you really need to do to experience this state is to get out of your car and go stand in it. Get your feet m its dirt and wheat, smell the seductive sweet-spiciness of its life and raise your hands towards the blue dome of its sky. And if you should happen to stop in one or more of the towns dotting your way along 1-70 and spend much time with its people, you would come to realize that it is to the overwhelming credit of Kansans generally that, for the most part, they are willing to leave each other alone. The value of privacy is something ingrained, coming from farming predecessors who learned it walking fields of wheat and corn. 

This, then, is the atmosphere in which I have lived all my life--the last five years with my lover, Jack, also a native Kansan. I would never say Kansas is a state of perpetual bliss for all of us. Gay Kansans are a largely unprotected minority whose civil and human rights are often trampled upon by legislation and social policy that seeks to marginalize and stigmatize us. More than once Jack and I have seen the righteous fist of homophobia deliver its blows in plain view of school board members, police officers or legislators who conspire tacitly not to intervene. And there are among us those who cultivate fear, hatred and anger and who use religious zeal or make-believe logic to justify doing so. 

Three years ago, Jack and I moved from Hays in western Kansas to Lawrence. In this university town we have found a diversity of people, every kind of lifestyle and subculture. It is also is a place where Gay or Lesbian couples can be seen walking through downtown hand in hand. 

However, just twenty minutes from Lawrence in Topeka, lives Kansas' most infamous homophobe, the Reverend Fred Phelps Sr. Phelps, along with his band of religious zealots, has logged thousands of hours protesting Gay rights events. He is like one person you never invite to the party but who always shows up anyway. Unlike the obnoxious party-crasher, however, Phelps and his followers come to fight, and they bring with them a truckload of red, white and blue picket signs to help them spread their message--"God hates fags."

Phelps is an unremarkable looking man--short, compact build, steely blue eyes, thinning blond hair. The only thing about him that really draws your attention is the grin he wears as he tells you that God has condemned you, that you deserve to die. It is a grin as distasteful as syrup of ipecac. It's also unnerving, because on his aging face it appears almost grandfatherly. The reason for his grin, Phelps will tell you, is he loves his work. He loves to spread his hatred and he loves to incur the wrath of those on whom he spreads it. It's hatred he lives for and it seems the more people who loathe him, the better.

Phelps heads the Westboro Baptist church in Topeka, where his teachings are based on an old-style belief in absolute predestination--to become a member, one must convince the congregation that he or she is one of the few chosen to live eternally in God's grace. Apparently the Phelps family has been unusually blessed, for many of the church's members are also members of the family. The congregation lives, in large part, in houses that form a kind of compound around the church itself, which boasts a backyard swimming pool and running track.

There is no depth of bad taste to which Phelps will not sink to make his message heard. Until he was ordered by a Kansas court to desist, one of his favorite activities was to picket the funerals of people who died of AIDS-related illnesses. Now he makes sure to get his picketing in before the mourners actually gather at the grave side. Through sheer persistence as well as a morbid public fascination with his actions, Phelps has enjoyed considerable media exposure. As Jack and I sat watching TV coverage of 1993's March on Washington, Phelps' grinning presence popped up time and time again, telling reporters, "One of them Maced me. These are violent people." We later heard Phelps and his group were the most visible anti-Gay presence at the march.

The first time I saw Phelps in person was at a pride parade and rally in Wichita, Kansas in 1990. It was shortly after I moved to Hays and came out, and some of my friends and I trekked across the state to participate in the events. It was a horribly hot day but the level of enthusiasm among the participants was high. Toward the end of the parade route, Phelps and his group came into view. Phelps was campaigning for governor and on a bicycling tour of the state. He had made a stopover in Wichita to protest Pride. I remember not being angry. It was as if anger had been removed and in its place was a strangely quiet and sad feeling of inevitability. Some Part of me--a corner of my mind in which were stored all the angry homophobic taunts and jeers of my school and high school years--had expected this.

Since that day, I have been to many events and seen Phelps at nearly every one of them. I have spent numbing hours trying to comprehend what drives him. The conclusion I came to is there is no understanding Phelps. He is a man who wears a bulletproof vest to his protests, more as a symbol of his disdain for Gays than out of any real fear of getting shot. His beliefs lie in a realm of twisted and perverse religiosity. 

But while there is no understanding Phelps, there is yet a kind of meaning in the ways that we, as the Gay community, respond to him. I have learned about the power of a common enemy to bring people together--whether for constructive or destructive purposes. Phelps has given the Gay community a totem of homophobia at which to direct its pro-rights movement. We are a diverse community but when the cause is "show Fred Phelps what you think of him," we can all get behind it. When we challenge Phelps, we feel the strength of our solidarity.

Be this as it may, it is only part of the meaning of Phelps. Unlike Phelps, most of us know there is more to life than hatred and rage. And when Phelps' words and actions touch us, they touch us in deeper, more important ways as well. We realize that the formulation of a clear sense of identity is perhaps the most vital task facing Gays and Lesbians. Only by understanding who we are can we hope to accomplish the journey that begins with acceptance and ends in celebration. But formulating identity is also one of the most complicated and dangerous tasks we face. What makes this task so tough is the lack of significant and cohesive landmarks in the cultural landscape. While this situation is slowly improving, it is still true, for instance, that in mainstream media a young finds almost no role models showing what it is to be a well-adjusted Gay or Lesbian. 

The truth is we are people enormously capable of love and compassion, who have found ways to express our love for one another in a world largely blind to our needs. The day Gay relationships are treated with the respect they deserve we will live in a much better world. This will be the day society stops pretending our families do not exist and people struggling with their sexuality will no longer have to turn to the TV to see cardboard representations of themselves portrayed as jokes or objects of pity. 

Phelps, of course, would return gleefully to the pre-Stonewall days of terror and uncertainty. In Phelps' activities is the desire to present us as a an immoral group. To this end, he makes the claim that Gays and Lesbians are obsessed with sex acts. This whittling down of our lives into a handful of sex acts shows us it is up to us alone to construct an identity for ourselves that is workable and true. And above all else, this is what Phelps means: the knowledge that we are the creators and caretakers of our identity.
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