No More Mr. Nice Guy!

God hates Phred Felps...

Well, he must, otherwise he wouldn't have let a Maryland jury hit his extreme-right hate cult with a $10.9 million award for causing emotional distress by picketing the funeral of a soldier marine who died in Iraq.

Though I'm not generally a fan of jackpot justice, I am delighted to see these neanderthal troglodytes being hit where it hurts. Call it schadenfreude, call it double standards, I don't care. Churches in the US have an astonishingly privileged position, despite the constitutional ban on establishment of a religion. They pay no taxes, they get all sorts of breaks and exemptions from zoning laws, and the government constantly fawns over religious leaders and assumes that their buying into some ancient superstition gives them special insight and expertise into not just moral issues, but biology, medicine, planetology, cosmology, you name it.

Religion - especially of George Bush Junior's ole-time variety - has been given unprecedented power, influence and access to our tax dollars in the last few years. And it has not been shy about abusing this power, and turning its pulpit into a bully pulpit. "Don't fool with the church because the church has buried many a critic, and all the critics that we have not buried, we're making funeral arrangements for them!" In short, organized religion has become a new Mafia.

The verdict against Westboro Baptist Church is hopefully the first salvo in a long overdue fight back by sane, decent people. This is NOT a free speech issue. Freedom of speech means the government can't restrict your speech; it does not mean "speech without consequences." Felps and his inbred hillbilly mutant clan are facing the consequences of their free speech. I hope the backlash continues, and every two-bit holy huckster who preaches hatred and violence in the name of Gentle Jeezus Meek & Mild gets his flabby ass sued into oblivion.