Rod Dreher blogs about the pending death of the miserable Fred Phelps, the man who can probably claim more credit than anyone else for the success of the homosexual cause in the public sphere.
I've always thought the Westboro Baptist Church people were despicable, but there is something about the thought of that old man lying on his death bed, forsaken, the victim of his own sins, that makes me pity him. One tear of repentance from the vicious old preacher will open the floodgates of the divine mercy he spent his life trying to deny to others. I pray for that tear.
And I hope no one pickets his funeral, giving to his family the mercy they do not deserve.
The thing I've always found particularly troublesome about these people: They're not redneck hicks. I had to deal with them at one point, and their letters to me were articulate and well-reasoned.
Bad people, yes, but not morons.
Moral morons (to use a Flannery O'Connor term), yes.
