Henkimaa » children

James Dobson’s God is a child abuser, & so is Jerry Prevo’s

Mel Green — Tue, 22 Sep 2009 09:18:45 +0000

Max Blumenthal in Anchorage: click on picture for full-size poster with details on where & when you can hear him during his visit.

Crossposted at Celtic Diva’s Blue Oasis

Thanks to some problems with a print job I was needed to help solve, my lunch yesterday was late, & to compound frustration it was interrupted by a fire drill, which meant having to shut down my computer, do a quick pack-up, & join everyone else in the office — faculty, staff, students — in a walk in the rain.

But the worst of it was that it interrupted me in my reading: having learned at Phil Munger’s blog Progressive Alaska about the upcoming visit to Anchorage of Max Blumenthal, & further detail about the same at some of the other Alaska progressive blogs like Celtic Diva’s Blue Oasis, What Do I Know, Immoral Minority, and the Mudflats, I decided to check further into his recently published book, Republican Gomorrah: Inside the Movement that Shattered the Party. [Ref #1-6]

Palin's in here too, in case you were wondering.

Well, lunchtime wasn’t enough to get the full skinny out of what is something of a fat book (416 pages in hardback) I ended up buying the book for my Kindle. Didn’t have my Kindle with me, actually — but I did have my iPod Touch, with the Kindle for iPhone app, so after work found me reading at the bus stop at Prov Hospital, then on the bus, & then some more over dinner. Per my Kindle, I’m now 14 percent of my way through the book at locations 1110-1119. That tells you a lot, doesn’t it? Sorry, Kindles don’t come with page numbers (I sure wish they did). Okay, so another way of saying it: I’m at the beginning of chapter 8, “The Killer and the Saint,” which is about to describe to me how serial killer Ted Bundy got some last-minute attention prior to his execution in January 1989 by blaming his sociopathic ways on an addiction to pornography, & by seeking absolution from the father-confessor he’d chosen, Focus on the Family leader James Dobson.

That chapter should be interesting. Back in the ’80s I’d read at least two or three books about Bundy, & I remember the date of his execution well — I was in Seattle at the time, where a lot of people were discussing him that day, especially women who lived in King County when Bundy was raping & murdering women there. Having read those books about Bundy, having read 7 chapters of this book already, I know even without having yet read chapter 8 that Bundy’s confession to Dobson was nothing more than self-aggrandizing publicity on both their parts. Bundy might claim to have been “born again” as a Christian on Florida’s death row, but best I can figure in all I’ve read about sociopaths of his ilk he had no soul to save: it had been, for whatever reasons, lost long ago — perhaps as a result of the abuse he himself had experienced as a child. Dobson might be claiming to be witnessing Bundy’s salvation, but best I can see is he was either (1) a chump; or (2) delighted to have Bundy’s assistance in promoting his distorted idea of Christianity, which itself is marked by a promotion of child abuse (what Dobson called “discipline”). Maybe both. Y’think?

I hadn’t actually known before starting this book that James Dobson got his start as a child psychologist & was even a professor of pediatrics at USC School of Medicine in the late ’60s/early ’70s. Then in 1970 he published his child-rearing manual, Dare to Discipline — his answer to the “permissive” child-rearing advice of Dr. Benjamin Spock. Blumenthal quotes from Dobson’s book:

A little bit of pain goes a long way for a young child…. However, the spanking should be of sufficient magnitude to cause the child to cry genuinely. After the emotional ventilation, the child will often want to crumple to the breast of his parent, and he should be welcomed with open, warm, loving arms. [Ref #6]

Wow. If my partner & I had followed that advice in disciplining the already-abused boy who came to live with us at age 9, guess what would have happened to us? We’d've been charged with child abuse. And rightly so.

Blumenthal makes a case that Dobson’s beliefs about corporal punishment extends into his views about — & indeed the overall Christianist view about — the Christianist believer’s relationship to (their version of) God. Blumenthal quotes from Philip Greven’s book Spare the Child: The Religious Roots of Punishment and the Psychological Impact of Physical Abuse:

The persistent ‘conservatism’ of American politics and society is rooted in large part in the physical violence done to children…. The roots of this persistent tilt towards hierarchy, enforced order, and absolute authority — so evident in Germany earlier in this century and in the radical right in American today — are always traceable to aggression against children’s wills and bodies, to the pain and the suffering they experience long before they, as adults, confront the complex issues of the polity, the society, and the world. [Ref #6]

Blumenthal points out that many Christianist leaders — including Dobson — were themselves subjected to corporal punishment and/or outright physical abuse as children.

Now, this doesn’t surprise me. I’ve felt for a long time that the God worshiped by Christianists was your basic big bully. And that the fear of God’s bullying punishments & the threat of eternal damnation were the only things that many Christianists felt could keep them in line — if indeed they did keep them in line. When you’re taught from babyhood that “responsibility” is no more than blind obedience under the threat of a slapping hand or a belt or a “board of education” (which I remember seeing in use two or three times in junior high: yes, teacher-administered corporal punishment with a wooden paddle was allowed in public schools when I was a kid), what kind of responsibility do kids really learn? Do they learn the internal strength needed to make truly moral decisions? Or are they merely running scared from Mom’s or Dad’s or the (so-called) Lord God Almighty’s whiphand?

People in Anchorage probably won’t be too surprised, either, to learn that at least as of 1985, even preschool children in the Anchorage Baptist Temple-affiliated Anchorage Christian Schools were subject to corporal punishment. From an October 1985 story in the Anchorage Daily News:

The Rev. Jerry Prevo announced Thursday that pre-school children will no longer be paddled at the Anchorage Christian School following Wednesday’s sentencing of a school employee for child abuse.

Prevo, whose Anchorage Baptist Temple runs the school, said corporal punishment will no longer be used on the pre-schoolers, “based on the fact it’s hard to spank and not take a chance of accidentally bruising.”

“When that happens, it puts our employees in an awkward position, and it’s not worth the hassle,” Prevo said.

Mary Lou Love, 52, a secretary with the school, was given a six-month suspended sentence for bruising a 2-year-old child’s bottom. Love swatted the child, Jennifer Wheeler, three times with a wooden paddle last May when she refused to eat.

… During her sentencing hearing, Love testified that she had been deeply disturbed over the incident and said that she never meant to bruise the child. She said she spanked her only because her job required her to do so.

“I would not have swatted her if I’d knew it would have bruised,” she said, adding that she will never paddle another child even if it means losing her job.

In 1983, Love’s supervisor, Robert Moreland, was charged with bruising the bottom of a 2-year-old child who also refused to eat….

Prevo said the bruising incidents were isolated cases.

“The parents sign a permission slip knowing that corporal punishment will be used.

“We’ve had as many as 800 kids a day and in the 13 years (the school has been open) and we’ve had two incidents. We would think that’s pretty good.”

He said corporal punishment will continue to be used at the grade school, junior and senior high school levels. [Ref #7]

That was, of course, 24 years ago, in 1985 — I have no idea if Anchorage Christian Schools still hits older-than-preschool kids with wooden paddles for serious crimes against the Lord Bully Almighty like refusing to eat. It is, after all, possible that ACS has learned over the years using wooden paddles on older kids is just as much of a “hassle” as hitting two-year-olds with them. But then again… maybe not.

(Did I say I remembered seeing wooden paddles in use in my junior high days? Much more do I remember hearing them: the hard loud thwack of wood against a kid’s behind, & the kid crying out with each swat. None of the cases involved a kid having been violent. No, only the teacher was violent. This was in 1971–72. It’s a practice I hope the Columbia Falls, Montana school system has dropped long since.)

People in Anchorage will possibly also not be surprised that ABT’s pastor Jerry Prevo, like James Dobson, grew up in a household where incidents of abuse occurred:

Born Jan. 12, 1945 in Oak Ridge, Tenn., Jerry Prevo grew up as the eldest of two sons to a pious mother and an alcoholic father who worked at a nuclearfuel processing plant.

One of his earliest childhood memories is rooted in a latenight argument between his mother and father when he was 3. Prevo’s father was in a drunken rage and threatened to kill the boy to get back at the mother.

She retreated, dragging young Jerry across the family bed to safety. He stills bears a scar on his chin from hitting the bedstead in the frantic escape effort.

His father, Prevo says, was abusive only when drunk. When sober, he taught Jerry how to hunt and fish and other fatherson things. During Prevo’s high school years, his father tempered his drinking somewhat and life was a little easier at home.

But when Prevo went away to college, the drinking began again and his father eventually deserted the family for a barmaid.

In 1976, the day he received a letter from his son in Alaska that spoke of how he still loved him despite the drinking, Prevo’s father hung himself in a shower stall.

Prevo speaks openly about the alcoholism, the abuse, the desertion and the suicide. But the arrival at his decision to reveal the final chapter of his father’s life, which he did to his congregation upon returning from his father’s funeral, was not easy.

“The biggest problem I had,” he says, “was the pride factor. I asked myself, “Are you going to share that with others? . . . Well, no one is perfect and sometimes people expect perfection in a pastor and get hurt . . . But it was an example that everything doesn’t always go my way, that people don’t always speak highly of me, that I have personal problems that everyone else has.”

His childhood experiences hardened many of his current beliefs, including total abstention from alcohol. [Ref #8]

What really strikes me here is the apparent assumption on Prevo’s part that his father’s alcoholism, abuse, desertion, suicide — somehow had something to do with Prevo‘s lack of perfection: as if the young Jerry Prevo was somehow at fault for his father‘s imperfections. For imperfections that, in fact, harmed Prevo’s mother & Prevo himself.

This isn’t just irony — although it is that, too. But mainly: his is a common reaction in people who have been abused as children: they take the responsibility for the parents’ abuse of them upon themselves. They blame themselves: something must be wrong with them for their parent to hurt them so.

And then, all too often, unless someone helps them to learn differently, they grow up to pass that belief on, in word & in deed: the cycle of violence. Some of them even teach that it’s what God wants.

What a horrible teaching. What a horrible God. But this is the God Jerry Prevo, as much as James Dobson, calls upon us to believe in.

Sorry, but a Big Bully Child Abuser in the Sky is not anyone I want to worship.

I have more to say about what I’m learning from Max Blumenthal’s book, but it’s way past midnight & time for sleep — so it’ll have to wait.

But before I shut my laptop & shut my eyes, I want to reiterate what the other folks have been saying: Max Blumenthal is coming to Anchorage this weekend, & you have a chance to see & hear him. Phil Munger has the full lowdown on where he’ll be. [Ref #9] And if you’ve got a spare dime, please consider donating using the PayPal link on Phil’s site to help cover costs of Mr. Blumenthal’s plane ticket up here!

References

9/21/09. “Max Blumenthal Returns to the Land of Queen Esther” by Phil Munger (Progressive Alaska).
9/18/09. “Now THAT’S what I call some down-home ‘indoctrination’!” by Linda Kellen Biegel (Celtic Diva’s Blue Oasis).
9/21/09. “Frank Schaeffer on Evangelicals – Max Blumenthal in Anchorage Next Weekend to Tell us Personally” by Steve Aufrecht (What Do I Know?).
9/21/09. “Help Max Blumenthal receive the Alaska Bloggers bump” by Gryphen (Immoral Minority).
9/21/09. “Max Blumenthal is Comin’ to Town!” by AK Muckraker (The Mudflats).
Republican Gomorrah: Inside the Movement that Shattered the Party by Max Blumenthal (Nation Books, 2009).
10/18/1985. “Children won’t be paddled” by Kim Rich (Anchorage Daily News, p. C1).
10/30/1986. “No middle ground” by Andrew Perala (Anchorage Daily News, Lifestyles section p. 1).
9/18/09. “Max Blumenthal in Anchorage Next Week” by Phil Munger (Progressive Alaska).

Does Anyone Beat Your Heart for You (poem)

Mel Green — Wed, 17 Jun 2009 20:57:33 +0000

Does Anyone Beat Your Heart for You

does anyone beat your heart for you —
oh yes I know there are some who
will quicken it
or slow it at their leaving —
but when you are alone at night
and sleeping, dreamless . . .
it is there . . . beating —
it will be there . . . beating —
till you die

does anyone beat your heart for you
does anyone live your life for you
do you cast a vote — plea for
intercession
do you hasten your death by forgetting

do you close your eyes and believe
what others say you see

[January 9, 1982]

About this poem

I wrote this poem many many years ago, mostly in my head, one day walking across my home town of Columbia Falls, Montana, & thinking about people who seem to need to have other people tell them what to think & believe. Much of last night’s testimony against the Anchorage equal rights ordinance reminded me of this, as did the sight of the numerous teenagers bused in from Anchorage Christian Schools (affiliated with Anchorage Baptist Temple) to picket against the proposed ordinance along 36th Avenue — another use of kids as billboards to advertise the prejudices of adults.

I wonder if their classes in school gave these kids extra credit for waving their preprinted signs for Prevo? I wonder how many of them might actually be gay or lesbian or trans, but can’t tell anyone, & fight earnestly inside themselves against it because the adults in their lives teach them to distrust their own self-understandings?

Update: At first I thought the kids in the wine-colored shirts were from Anchorage Baptist Temple — but they’re not. from the Mississippi Avenue Baptist Church (MABC) of Aurora, Colorado, which visited Anchorage from June 14–22, 2009 for their Youth Mission 2009. On two of the days of their visit, June 16 and 17, the Anchorage Assembly was hearing public testimony on the Anchorage equal rights ordinance. So what did the adult leadership from their church have these kids from another state do during their youth mission? – Wave signs urging permitting continued discrimination against citizens of a different city in another state than they even live in.

The MABC youth mission was was hosted by the Anchorage Baptist Temple, whose pastor, Jerry Prevo, is a principal leader in opposition to the Anchorage equal rights ordinance. They were bused to the Loussac Library by ABT, and the signs they carried were printed by Alaska Family Council.

Billboards

Mel Green — Sat, 13 Jun 2009 06:41:03 +0000

Children of Westboro Baptist Church

I said something nice about Jerry Prevo once. Honest. I really did. I even published my positive comments online. They were contained in one of the earliest posts in on the very first blog I ever had, in 2003, at the unlikely address of henkimaa.blogga.nu. You can still find them there if you look. — But let me save you the trouble: I’ve gone to that old blog & copied the relevant posts to this site. All of them refer to some degree to Anchorage’s 2003 PrideFest celebration, & to the visit being made to it by members of the Westboro Baptist Church of Topeka, Kansas.

Westboro Baptist Church kids

If that name is unfamiliar to you, try this name: Fred Phelps. No? Okay, try this one: godhatesfags.com. Yeah, that’s right, those folks: the one’s who first achieved national notoriety protesting the funeral of Matthew Shepard, the gay University of Wyoming student who was kidnapped, tortured, tied to a fence, & left to die in a remote area near Laramie, Wyoming, in October 1998. Phelps & his church members picketed Matthew Shepard’s funeral carrying signs bearing such comforting slogans as “Matt Shepard rots in Hell”, “AIDS Kills Fags Dead” and “God Hates Fags.” Since then, WBC has continued to show up all over the place protesting one thing or another that they hate — or rather, according to them, that “God hates” — which proves to cover quite a wide territory. Their version of God hates “fags,” it’s been established; their version of God also hates America, Sweden, Italy, Catholics, Boy Scouts, soldiers, most other religions, most other Christian denominations, even most other Baptist churches. They especially like to protest funerals — of gays, soldiers, the Boy Scouts who were killed in a tornado in Iowa in June 2008. They carry provocative signs that loudly advertise their — er, I mean “God’s” — hatred of these things.

Westboro Baptist Church kid. Photo by andyofne; see photo credits.

In 2003, they decided to come to Anchorage to protest during the LGBT community’s annual Pride week. They intended to picket the “fag/dyke Parade and Festival, the fag-infested Univ. of Alaska, Anchorage, and the sodomite whorehouses masquerading as churches in Anchorage” in “religious protest & warning.” Sadly, it seemed: God hated Anchorage.

And so finally my old posts, where you can read my account of events as they took place:

6/20/2003. Fred Phelps coming to Anchorage
6/27/2003. Anchorage Pride 2003: Look how far we’ve come
7/8/2003. Those Phelpists aren’t too clever, are they?
7/8/2003. Publicity, publicity, publicity

Little girl between Westboro Baptist Church adults

It’s in the third of those posts, the one that called into question the Phelpists cleverness, that I said something positive about Jerry Prevo. It seems that for some reason (& you can read that entire post to learn the theories as to why), the Phelpists decided that one of the “sodomite whorehouses masquerading as churches in Anchorage” they should picket was none other than the Anchorage Baptist Temple.

This part’s worth quoting at length, because it’s where I say something nice.

According to [the Anchorage Daily News], several hundred people took part in the Pride festivities — which makes me very happy, given how sparse participation used to be back in my early ’80s activist days; and then the next day, Sunday, about 20 Phelpists total picketed at the gate of Elmendorf Air Force Base, where a big airshow with estimated public attendance of 70,000 was taking place, and various churches, including Anchorage Baptist Temple.

Say what? [Double, triple take.] Did you say Anchorage Baptist Temple?

Indeed. Shirley Phelps-Roper told the ADN that they picketed Anchorage Baptist Temple — which is viewed by Anchorage’s lesbian/gay community as a sort of Homophobia Central — because it was the largest church in town, & its pastor, Jerry Prevo, didn’t condemn homosexuality “loudly” enough.

I suppose maybe because no matter how loud Prevo has gotten about it (& as a longtime Anchorageite, I can tell you he’s been very loud), Prevo has never called for homosexuals to be executed just because they’re homosexual?

Prevo himself seemed a bit bemused by Phelpist attentions, though he made clear to the ADN that his church is in no way affiliated with the Phelpists’ Westboro Baptist Church, and disagrees with Phelpist tactics and philosophy.

Good for you, Jerry.

[Double, triple take number two.] Did I say that?

By gods, I did. Good for you. Truth is, I don’t much like Prevo, or his tactics and philosophy (the ABT website doesn’t mention the slimy things he’s occasionally done in the past), but hey, on this one thing I can say I respect him. He does not so misread Christian scripture as to call for murder, or proclaim a gospel entirely based on hatred. And religious/spiritual differences aside, his church does seem to do real good for a lot of people (if harm, in my opinion, to a significant number of others).

Do you think these kids understand the signs they're carrying? Or do they just love the adults who asked them to carry them?

Of course, you must take into account that I wrote that before I knew that in October 1994 he had preached at the Anchorage Baptist Temple about shooting liberals, telling his congregation that, “The only reason I would not take a gun and do it is because of God. That’s the only reason… In fact, it would be better to shoot a liberal, then, and then be put in jail. Maybe they’d at least feed you.” [Ref. 1] He later said that he wasn’t serious about shooting liberals, but had only been engaging in hyperbole. [Ref. 2] But then I guess you could say the Phelpists mostly engage in hyperbole too: in spite of all their hate-filled signs, they have never, to my knowledge, engaged in violence at their pickets or otherwise.

But I still wouldn’t say that Rev. Prevo or his church engages in the same aimed-in-every-direction hatred that the Phelpists practice. Rev. Prevo is very specific in his hatred: Love the sinner, hate the sin.

Though in the current battle over the equal rights ordinance, as in the two that preceded it, I think he might more truthfully state his belief as being: Love the sinner, hate the sinner’s ability to keep a job or home without being fired or evicted at the drop of a hat. And one can’t help but notice that it’s only one set of “sinners” that Rev. Prevo feels should be left open to such discrimination. Can you guess which ones?

Just a couple of days ago in a post entitled “Is Jerry Prevo mishandling the Anchorage Gay Ordinance issue?” Alaska Standard publisher & conservative talk show host Dan Fagan wrote,

On Monday Dr. Jerry Prevo was a guest on my show to talk about the proposed Anchorage Gay Ordinance. I will have to admit I experienced some discomfort with the interview. My fear is those of us opposing the ordinance are so obsessed with winning the debate we are sending the gay community the wrong message.

In the accompanying audio clip, with the filename it’s not just about winning the debate.mp3, Mr. Fagan observes that (according to Christian theology) we are all sinners, but the message Rev. Prevo seems to be putting out is that homosexuals are the worst of the worst, are lesser & lower than other sinners such as those who make up the body of the conservative church. Mr. Fagan suggests that some ordinance opponents — he actually uses the word “we” — have become so intent upon winning at any cost that they’ve lost sight of what Christians are supposed to be about. I don’t agree with everything Mr. Fagan says here, far from it, but I respect it a lot. It’s a clip well-worth listening to — what has every appearance of being an earnest self-examination about how conservative Christians might better fulfill their calling in the face of their beliefs about homosexuality & gender identity.

But in the meantime, yes, it’s been obvious to me for much longer than just this battle that Rev. Prevo is far more interested in winning the debate, whatever debate he happens to be in at any given moment, than in following the message of love that the Christian church is supposedly here to proclaim. There are not too many LGBT people that I know, myself no exception, who feels much love at all in the message Rev. Prevo directs at us. Not to many nongay people that I know either — just read the letters in the Anchorage Daily News, or the reader comments, & you’ll see that the majority of commenters whether straight or gay are sick of Rev. Prevo, consider his “Love the sinner hate the sin” as so much empty rhetoric, & wish he’s just shut up. To me, Rev. Prevo’s chief distinguishing feature is an arrogant, smug will to win.

And it shows in his tactics.

Which is what brings me, finally, to what about last Tuesday’s events reminded me so extraordinarily of the Westboro Baptist Church.

The kids.

One of the kids bused to the ordinance hearing Tuesday night.

Because the Westboro Baptist Church is well-known for bringing their children to their protests as billboards of their hatreds. And while Rev. Prevo’s hatred — masked as it is in the language of “hate the sin, not the sinner” — is less crude, more sophisticated than that of Fred Phelps & his children, he is no less guilty of using his children, or the children of his congregants, as propagandist billboards on issues that most of them are as innocent of as are the Westboro kids. They are not comprehending: they are merely repeating what their elders tell them in order to please them — in order to please the people they depend upon & whom they love. And to make such use of their brightness, their innocence — well, I’ve gotta say. That’s a cold & cynical move indeed.

Kids bused in to the hearing

There were two separate worlds at play at the Loussac Library last Tuesday night: inside the Assembly chambers, & outside them, in the lobby & outside the building altogether. And I was inside. I had learned, of course, that adults from the Matanuska-Susitna Valley, which is outside the boundaries of the Municipality of Anchorage, had been bused or carpooled into Anchorage to testify, despite their non-resident status. But other than some chanting heard briefly through the walls from equal rights supporters, I was minimally aware of what was going on outside the building until I got home that night & read Phil Munger’s blog post about it at Progressive Alaska. As he reported,

Little girl bused in to Tuesday night's ordinance hearing

Anchorage and Mat-Su Valley fundamentalist churches bussed in well over a hundred kids to the Anchorage Assembly meeting this evening…

The kids, some less than ten [years old], were mostly without parents. They were sort of clumped together, perhaps by congregation, or by home schooling support group. Dozens of adults were taking pictures of the kids, some encouraged by the Christianist adults around the youngsters. I took about 70 photos. Here are a few.

Phil has graciously permitted me to reproduce a few of his photos here, as has AKMuckraker of Mudflats, whose post the following morning also mentioned the kids. As she wrote,

Kids bused in

I was stunned at the number of children that were there waving red signs.

I stood for a while looking at them, and I wondered how many of them were gay. One in ten. I picked out one little boy, and imagined it was him. He will grow up among people who think like this. As he becomes aware, he will think that he is wrong, and bad, and unlovable. He will remember this day when he and his family stood holding signs. He may try to hide who he is. His parents, standing next to him right now, may not accept him. He may be afraid to tell them, and live his life as a lie. Or he may deny who he is and try to fit in, and trying hard to prove that he isn’t what he is. He may even bring his wife and kids to rallies like this.

Many of the witnesses last Tuesday night could tell stories of childhoods much like that. On both sides of the debate.

References

Jones, Stan. (1994). “Prevo’s sermon draws fire: Some fear preacher may incite the fringe.” Anchorage Daily News. Oct. 22, p. A1.
Phillips, Natalie. (1994). “Prevo plays to packed house: Preacher, guest evangelist keep up attack on liberals.” Anchorage Daily News. Oct. 31, p. A1.

6/20/2003. Fred Phelps coming to Anchorage. The “godhatesfags.com” followers of Westboro Baptist Church pastor Fred Phelps announce plans to picket in Anchorage during PrideFest 2003.
6/27/2003. Anchorage Pride 2003: Look how far we’ve come. A brief history history of the annual Pride parade in Anchorage from 1983, in which there were 19 marchers, to 2001, in which there were two to three thousand. Can the followers of Fred Phelps wreck that? Don’t think so.
7/8/2003. Those Phelpists aren’t too clever, are they? Why did Westboro Baptist Church, famous for their website “godhatesfags.com,” picket Anchorage Baptist Temple — famous in Anchorage as the very center of antigay attitudes in Alaska?
7/8/2003. Publicity, publicity, publicity. Which Anchorage churches during PrideFest 2003 did the Phelpists picket, & which not, & why?
6/12/2009. Billboards. While in 2003 Jerry Prevo decried Westboro Baptist Church tactics, in 2009 he & his allies didn’t hesitate to use children — even some younger then 10 — in a very like way, as billboards for their parents’ prejudices.

Do you think the kids in this photo understand the signs they're carrying? Or do they just love the adults who asked them to carry them?

Photo credits:

Photo 3, “Westboro Baptist Church kid.” Photo by andyofne; used under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial 2.0 Generic license. Taken in Chalco, Nebraska at WBC protests of Boy Scout funerals on June 17, 2008. For related photos, see andyofne’s set Fred Phelps Westboro Baptist Church Picket Boyscout Funeral. Flickr.com.