I think we all remember high schoolers with a penchant for yelling “That’s so gay!” in a couple million variations whenever they didn’t like something or it wasn’t popular. Although it may be politically incorrect, or even against harassment policies, saying something like that was never really taken seriously as it couldn’t be literally applied. As we got older, the ridiculousness of the whole phrase slipped away from our vocabularies, usually replaced with something like, “That’s retarded,” which makes slightly more sense and lessens offense to our sensibilities.

Fred Phelps and his band of merry children seem not to have gotten the memo. Founder of the Westboro Baptist Church in Topeka, Kan., Papa Phelps has preached and endorsed hatred in the form of God’s judgment for decades. As soon as a sinner or moral issue shows its head, there’s his family with their fabulously decorated placards.

The infamous Phelps clan, however, is making a move backward – going retro, one might say. While already well-known for their protests at military burials, claiming that God is punishing soldiers for serving a country that “enables” homosexuals (and anyone who practices any kind of sex besides “man-woman-marriage bed”), they’re expanding their franchise to just about any bad experience one might have.

When questioning beliefs of the majority religion, Christianity, I have often been told that God is not a malicious entity. The people who told me this are probably what the Phelps family refers to as false prophets, who aren’t abiding strictly to the scripture (the exact regulations of these passages are unknown to me, and probably most Christians as well, as the uniqueness of the Phelps’ devotion seems to be a guarded secret). According to them, everything that happens is God’s judgment and should be praised.

Therefore, more and more articles online are popping up with Westboro Baptist Church’s picket plans. Perhaps the press from military funerals was finally wearing off, or the Patriot Guard Riders were muffling their screeches. Whatever the reason, they’re now showing up at sites of natural disasters, social tragedies and even the Olympics.

After announcing in late January that they would protest at Heath Ledger’s funeral because of his role as a gay cowboy in “Brokeback Mountain” (which was avoided by the family), they announced later pickets of the pope in numerous places in D.C. and New York. Apparently not even the Roman Catholic Church, historically the “one and only path to salvation,” is righteous enough to please the Phelps family.

These two examples at least fit the pattern of hatred that has already been established, but other press releases seem to make less sense. Now waving signs in front of tornado-ravaged landscapes and places of mass shootings seems to be the priority. Maybe the natural disasters seem relevant to the wrath of God, but how is rejoicing because of a shooting in a city hall in Missouri remotely close to anything involving an omnipresent being or gay-enablers?

While we ponder that logic-melting paradox, consider their threats to picket outside of the 2008 Olympic Games being held in China. What about that makes any kind of sense? Are the Chinese supporters of sodomy? Surely nobody has given that a tremendous amount of thought. At any rate, it’s not going to happen for several reasons, one major issue being that the freedom that has protected them here in the United States – all those lawsuits they won by pissing people off enough to attack them – is clearly absent in China. I wouldn’t be surprised if they were unable to obtain visas to be there.

But the WBC remains firm in their beliefs that anything bad that happens to other people is only an affirmation of the fact that in comparison they’re pretty lucky – which they can only attribute to how happy their actions make God. Ironically, they also believe God has commanded them to point out how much He hates everyone else by cursing them with tragedies (even ones caused by fellow humans). Because they live in a nation full of sin – “tolerance is so gay!” – they’ll always have job security, and now they are extending their reach to the corners of the globe.

To that end, they’re also convinced that because they are the only true believers in the entire universe, they’ll be the only people in heaven. At least they’ll enjoy the company there, even if the lack of media stunts drives them insane.

– Luci Van Scoy is a junior in anthropology from Newton.