DON'T YOU THINK PROTESTING GODHATESFAGS.com IS A WASTE OF TIME?

don't you think that spending all this energy agaisnt the godhatefags.com people is a waste of time.
Lets be realistic here, they are not an outwardly violent group, they are a small group (consisting of mostly their own offspring and family *i think*) and they don't appear to have any political party affiliation. So they're not voting republican (they think bush is a gay pimp; HILARIOUS) in elections (the only way any anti-gay right laws might be passed) and they're not lynching gay people (if they are please correct me) and everyone hates them anyways. so in my opinion, who cares.

yeah they preach hate but honestly who's listening? They're such extremists that hardly anyone would associate with them. Their biggest offense , to me at least, is the videos on their site which are very obviously geared towards younger people (kind of a VH1 behind the music format.. also some of them are really funny but maybe i have a bad sense of humor) It just seems to me that there are much worse people in the world than a small extremist group that is basically just saying all the things that their religion believes. the whole 9/11 thing, as i've seen them talking of it, is saying basically that God has an ultimate plan and when a ton of people die it's part of his plan and should not be questioned (Christian funerals say the same thing when a child gets hit by a car or something of that nature "it's god's plan") they're going out of their way to shock people, for whatever reason, and in my opinion they're getting exactly what they want. i say fuck em who cares. when they start blowing up abortion clinics and actually killing gay people then it'll be a different story but until then it's a waste of time to try to change their minds because they'll just say you're going to hell, whether you believe in it or not.

JEFF SWENSON RESPONDS:

Yeah, I think it's worth the time. Listen, I don't think Fred Phelps will be heavily imitated. The fact is, Freddie Boy does more harm to his cause than good and ironically I'm almost glad he's out there as an extreme caricature of what it means to hate and what it means to be a homophobe.

But I only spend a fraction of my time doing this site so to say it is a waste of time isn't correct. It took some time to set up but after that I only spend about an hour each week updating the site with some content or letters. An hour a week isn't too much to ask when there's a group out there saying God hates homosexuals. I can also potentially benefit from the site if I can get enough visitors to stop by and eventually sell a product or advertising so there is a business incentive to be had. As it stands right now that isn't the case, but you never know. I also enjoy opening my big mouth and giving my opinions so there may be the simple reason of personal satisfaction.

It's not that I'm so much concerned with Fred Phelps, it's the broader attitudes out there that, while they don't want to associate themselves with an extremist group, are a part of the same problem. And that problem is the idea that religion should dictate law whereas I believe it should be reason and what's best for society as a whole that should dictate law.

As someone who leans Libertarian, I don't think the government has any business sticking its nose into marriage at all. Do you realize the IRS acts as a pusher of morality when they give tax breaks to married couples? So to hell with the government when it comes to them thinking they get to decide who gets to be married and who doesn't. But, as the current situation is that fact, a government intrusion into companion agreements, then homosexuals are "hated" or at the very least patronized into thinking they have all of their civil rights. And this is not the result of any extremist groups but by average citizens who support bigoted politicians.

To protest the extreme is to help the majority understand their own bigotry on a smaller scale.