How to attack Phelps and make it stick

Fred Phelps is a piss-poor excuse for a human being.

I figure Phelps is right in line for his own spot in the Fires of Hell, for "irretrievably damning" people to hell for...well, basically, doing things that piss Fred off.

He's hurt a lot of people, but no one thinks they can touch him because he's a lawyer at the head of a whole family of lawyers, and they love to heap lawsuits on their enemies.

Has anyone ever tried to sue Fred Phelps?

It seems to me that a good team of attorneys working on a contingency basis could nail Westboro Baptist Church to the fucking wall using emotional distress, pain & suffering, harassment and a few other choice charges. Come on. This asshat brings all his grandchildren to a soldier's funeral to hold up signs stating that he's dead because America hasn't started executing homosexuals...that's GOT to be worth a couple million, easy.

free speech and all of that.

Perhaps, depending on what happened at an event, he could be charged with inciting a riot or public disturbance, but generally it would have to be HIS people that started the ruckus, etc.

No one has a right to not be emotionally distressed, pained, suffered, or harassed because of speech. Libel and Slander are two different things, however, and should he participate in those he should be charged as such.

Same reason why abortion clinic protestors can't be charged for emotional distress, pain & suffering, harassment and a few other choice charges. Those protestors bring their children and grandchildren as well, and they hold up signs with pictures of aborted or miscarried fetuses, call women murderers, etc.

limitations?- Like not yelling 'fire' in a crowded theater? (that standard old line)

Doesn't the Constitution guarantee every person INALIENABLE = absolute, inherent something undeniable- rights, among which are LIFE, LIBERTY, AND THE PURSUIT OF HAPPINESS.??

To deny a family the right to grieve the death of a loved one, without harrassment, or making their difficult experience of having a funeral, and burial into a media circus, or an opportunity for a person who has no relationship to the deceased to promote an agenda of hate and intolerance is depriving them of their liberty- and their 'pursuit of ...'happiness'' (if you can call mourning a 'happy' occasion, - it IS a part of healing the loss, and finding a semblence of peace with life).

"Free speech" is a really abused 'right'- How many fines has Howard Stern gotten for speaking words that are not intended to injure or cause pain to anyone-??? yet Phelps can speak out, with the EXPRESS desire to harm, and manipulate others into altering their behaviour or lives, to suit HIS agenda-
That isn't 'free speech'- it is public intimidation and using words to injure and kill.


I believe there SHOULD be limits on my freedom to speak- if my speech has as its soul intention to deprive others of their inalienable rights.

you need to use something pointy...or gluey, I suppose.

there is nothing that has not been tried and either failed or not ever tried because the first amendment is important, even for the likes of Phelps. You think you have something new? Well I'll tell you what, you just come live in my town and give it a try or is this just more thinking that we just let them ride because we are all like that here. It would not be the first time I have seen that expressed, even the New York Times prints shit like that. Gimme a break, K? We have put up with this shit on 3 or 4 street corners 3 or 4 times a day for over 10 years. Do you really think you have something new?

IGNORE him and he will fade into oblivion. As long as people pay attention to him he will become bolder and bolder. Nothing could be worse for him than for people to just walk by and not even look. He will not go away but he will not feel so damned effective if people would just stop reacting to him.

Phelps is a petty little drama queen who's primary motivation is to seek attention for himself. The best tactic is to ignore him.

I was a bit snippy in my post above and I am sorry to be that way but this is just such an everyday thing for me that I get amused and then pissed when I see others get mad because he came to their state or just now getting pissed because he has moved his protests to other people besides the GLBT community. Where was the anger then? It was there but not nearly so much as now. So, I was a little snarky.

He is just that, a petty little drama queen, a nasty one and the only way to deal with him is to ignore him. Let him stew in his own hateful bile. There is no reason to join him and he will not go away no matter what we do.

to him. He's pathetic.

his history. He is no different now than he was in his 20's. This has always been his main thing, attention. Who else would set up a tent to convert Mormon's a block from the Salt Lake Temple? He is all about attention.

He will not go away, he may become bolder but maybe then we could nail his ass to the wall. My guess, and it is a very educated guess, is that he will stay just within the law. He always has. It will not matter what you do, he will do what he does anyway so why give him any satisfaction at all? Maybe ignoring him will dishearten the little ones?

It's not like we have rolled over and played dead here in Kansas while Phelps pulls his crap.

Imagine if seventy thousand of us du got together and camped out on thier door step we can start shutting down the seven hundred club, focus on the family, phelps, and I bet we could even begin to shake up the anti choice lobby. The question is how do you get a massive fire under peoples butts to get a change going? Complancey is no longer in option, we cant ignore the bully any longer. What we can do is get together and pop this bullys baloon. You know why a bully is like a balloon dontcha? Ya pop him good once he aint coming back.

They're the ones that run around the country with him.

In the meanwhile, the more he opens his mouth, the more sympathy he generates for those he attacks.

Fred Phelps and The Sago Mine Disaster
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fred_Phelps#Phelps_and_The_West_Virginia_Coal_Miners_.28Sago_Mine_Disaster.29

Fred Phelps and Mister Rogers
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fred_Phelps#Phelps_and_Mister_Rogers

How in HELL did all these throwbacks get to be lawyers??? Seriously, law school has got to be difficult. Did they all go to some bogus school, or what??

Which is beating them half to death if they dared to get an answer wrong on something.

Phelps apparently also used head shaving (in an era when the other children wore their hair long) as a form of punishment.

His children had to grow enough of a brain to get into and through law school because they wouldn't have made it through adolescence if they hadn't.

There's an expose on this nightmare somewhere on the internets. Please don't read it if you're not completely case-hardened; it will make you throw up. It almost did me.

Where is he? Why isn't he protesting? I wanted to see someone knock some sense into him.