Are you a Phag for Phelps?

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By JUSTIN KENDALL

Out Magazine columnist Josh Kilmer-Purcell writes that Fred Phelps and his homophobic brood might be “the most important GLBT activists since Stonewall.” In his February column, Kilmer-Purcell posits that the gay community should be grateful for the Phelps family’s in-your-face homophobia because their sincere hatred exposes Middle America to “what homophobia actually looks like when it’s stripped of such polite, compromising words as tolerance, states’ rights, and activist judges.”

“I would much rather have Fred Phelps be the public face of homophobia than ‘tolerant’ homophobes like Mitt Romney, who preaches ‘respect for diversity’ while recently insinuating that dead heterosexual parents would raise children better than live gay men and women,” Kilmer-Purcell writes.

Kilmer-Purcell proposed starting the Phags 4 Phelps Dephense Phund to keep Topeka’s Westboro Baptist Church in the public eye by helping pay for the family’s appeal of a $10.9 million judgment against them for picketing the funeral of a fallen solider. However, the church returned an initial donation of $100 with a message saying the church does not accept any donations.

So Kilmer-Purcell refocused his efforts with this Web site, Phags for Phelps, to show GLBT support for the church “and to help them spread their message of hate in order that it may be ridicule and despised by the widest audience possible.”

To become a Phag for Phelps, send an e-mail to PhagsForPhelps@mac.com.