{"id":10264,"date":"2010-10-05T19:49:43","date_gmt":"2010-10-06T03:49:43","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/johnshore\/?p=10264"},"modified":"2010-10-05T19:49:43","modified_gmt":"2010-10-06T03:49:43","slug":"does-fred-phelps-work-for-al-qaeda","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/johnshore\/2010\/10\/does-fred-phelps-work-for-al-qaeda\/","title":{"rendered":"Does Fred Phelps Work for Al-Qaeda?"},"content":{"rendered":"<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC \"-\/\/W3C\/\/DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional\/\/EN\" \"http:\/\/www.w3.org\/TR\/REC-html40\/loose.dtd\">\n<html><head><meta http-equiv=\"content-type\" content=\"text\/html; charset=utf-8\"><meta http-equiv=\"content-type\" content=\"text\/html; charset=utf-8\"><\/head><body><p><figure id=\"attachment_10265\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-10265\" style=\"width: 225px\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\"><a href=\"https:\/\/wp-media.patheos.com\/blogs\/sites\/393\/2010\/10\/jewsandisrael.jpg\" class=\" decorated-link\" target=\"_blank\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-10265   \" src=\"https:\/\/wp-media.patheos.com\/blogs\/sites\/393\/2010\/10\/jewsandisrael.jpg?w=225\" alt=\"\" width=\"225\" height=\"300\"><\/a><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-10265\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">If you're bin Laden, what's not to like?<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p><p>I found myself wondering (because<em> that\u2019s<\/em> how bored I get folding laundry) who funds Fred Phelps. It\u2019s known that its traveling picket show costs Westboro Baptist at least $250,000 a year. That\u2019s a lot of scratch for a small family church to choke up every year.<\/p>\n<p>There\u2019s no way those people have that kind of money.<\/p>\n<p>So who, I wondered, is bankrolling Westboro?<\/p>\n<p>I expected a simple Google search to answer that question. It didn\u2019t. If the source of Westboro\u2019s considerable funding is to be found anywhere online, I don\u2019t know where.<\/p>\n<p>Whomever is funding Phelps and his family is definitely keeping it secret.<!--more--><\/p>\n<p>So. Who would want to secretly finance Fred Phelps?<\/p>\n<p>If you think about it for six seconds, on the seventh you\u2019ll have your answer.<\/p>\n<p>But of course: <em>Osama bin Laden!<\/em><\/p>\n<p>Does Fred Phelps do anything that <em>doesn\u2019t<\/em> further Al-Qaeda\u2019s agenda?<\/p>\n<p>Hmm.<\/p>\n<p>Well, let\u2019s see. With relentless passion and tireless fury, Fred Phelps and his group vociferously:<\/p>\n<p>1. Persecute Jews;<\/p>\n<p>2. Hate homosexuals;<\/p>\n<p>3. Revile American soldiers;<\/p>\n<p>4. Make people hate Christians; and<\/p>\n<p>5. Proclaim that America is a hedonistic, immoral, doomed country.<\/p>\n<p>I of course have no idea what Osama bin Laden is paying Fred Phelps to do his bidding. But I do know one thing: both their covers just got blown!<\/p>\n<p><em>[Update: Some in the comments thread below have said that Fred is a lawyer who purposefully antagonizes and provokes people in the hopes of eliciting from them a response for which he can then sue them or (ideally, I\u2019m sure) the church or organization they represent. So he\u2019s a <span style=\"text-decoration: line-through\">sewer<\/span> suer! Whether or not Phelps actually makes enough doing that to support Westboro\u2019s toxic endeavors is still in question.]<\/em><\/p>\n<p>*****<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.facebook.com\/pages\/John-Shore\/89494795412?ref=s\" class=\" decorated-link\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\"><em>You\u2019re invited to join my Facebook fan page.<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I found myself wondering (because that\u2019s how bored I get folding laundry) who funds Fred Phelps. It\u2019s known that its traveling picket show costs Westboro Baptist at least $250,000 a year. That\u2019s a lot of scratch for a small family church to choke up every year. There\u2019s no way those people have that kind of [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1528,"featured_media":10265,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[2216,2217,2218,2219,2220,2221],"class_list":["post-10264","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-al-qaida-and-fred-phelps","tag-al-qaeda","tag-fred-phelps","tag-god-hates-fags","tag-osama-bin-laden","tag-westboro-baptist-church"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v21.1 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Does Fred Phelps Work for Al-Qaeda?<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"I found myself wondering (because that&#039;s how bored I get folding laundry) who funds Fred Phelps. 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