You will be furious when you finish this column. Fair warning. <\/p>\n
In March 2006, a 20-year-old Marine, Lance Cpl. Matthew Snyder, was killed in a motor vehicle accident in Iraq. His family probably thought that the most painful blow imaginable. Truth is, their pain was only beginning. <\/p>\n
Cpl. Snyder’s death, you see, came to the attention of Westboro Baptist Church in Topeka, Kan. Westboro, for those who do not know, is no more a church than is your average gas station toilet. <\/p>\n
According to published reports, it claims about 75 members, most of them kin to its leader, Fred Phelps. And Phelps preaches a “gospel” of anti-homosexuality that is grotesque even by the standards of fundamentalist hate. <\/p>\n
It is his thesis that because America has embraced “fags,” God is punishing the nation. God’s instrument of choice? Dead soldiers. <\/p>\n
“Thank God for dead soldiers,” he says. Phelps has taken to spreading this message at the funerals of service men and women – noisy, hateful protests that grieving families are forced to endure on one of the worst days of their lives. <\/p>\n
So in March 2006, Westboro protesters showed up at St. John’s Catholic Church (“St. John’s Kennel” in their formulation) in Westminster, Md., for Snyder’s funeral, reportedly carrying signs depicting male anal sex and slogans like “Semper Fi Fags.”<\/p>\n
Are you furious yet? This isn’t even the bad part. <\/p>\n
For the record, no one – Westboro included – has accused Matthew Snyder of being gay – not that that should matter. But the church’s bizarre argument is that the death of “every” dead service person should be celebrated as God’s punishment of a gay-tolerant nation. <\/p>\n
Cpl. Snyder’s father, Albert, sued the “church” for disrupting his son’s funeral. In October 2007, he won a $10.9 million verdict. In September, an appeals court tossed that verdict out. <\/p>\n
Nor is even that the worst of it. No, the worst is that the court recently ordered Albert Snyder to “pay” “Westboro’s legal bills.” You heard me. Snyder, who makes $43,000 a year, must pay $16,500 to the people who made a circus of his son’s funeral.<\/p>\n
“You can do the math,” says his attorney, Sean Summers. <\/p>\n