Friday should have been a solemn day for the people of McCook. Sgt. Randy Matheny was memorialized at the City Memorial Auditorium for having lost his life in the service of his country. Unfortunately and tragically, this memorial was upstaged and overshadowed by the antics of four fools and demagogues in the persons of Pastor Fred Phelps and three others, coming to McCook from their home in Topeka, Kan., where he is the pastor and leader of the independent Westboro Baptist Church.

He and his followers have been listed as a "hate group" by the Southern Poverty Law Center. He is known for preaching that "God hates fags" and that God will punish homosexuals as well as people such as Bill O'Reilly, Coretta Scott King, and Howard Dean, whom his church considers "fag-enablers."

 

Their main calling card to notoriety is their appearance at military funerals, arguing it is their sacred duty to warn others of God's anger, believing that homosexuality and its acceptance have doomed most of the world to eternal damnation. His congregation has slightly fewer than 100 members, 90 of whom are related to Phelps through blood, marriage or both.

 

As a child, he was described as not being very sociable with tendencies to be overbearing and arrogant. He never dated in high school and had no interest in members of the opposite sex, according to his own words. After high school, he attended three Bible colleges, earning a two-year degree from John Muir College in 1951.

He graduated from Washburn University Law School in Topeka, Kansas in 1962 but was later disbarred by the state bar. This disbarment allowed him to practice only in federal court. In 1985, nine federal judges filed a disciplinary complaint against Phelps, alleging false accusations against the judges. The complaint was settled in 1989, with Phelps agreeing to permanently stop practicing law in Federal court.

 

Two of Phelps' sons (he has 13 children), Mark and Nate, insist that the church is actually a carefully planned cult that allows Phelps to see himself as a demigod, wielding absolute control of the lives of his family and congregation. B.H. McAllister, the Baptist minister who ordained Phelps, said in a 1993 interview that Phelps had developed a delusion wherein he was one of the few people on Earth worthy of God's grace and that everyone else in the world was going to Hell.

 

Phelps describes the United States as "a sodomite nation of flag-worshiping idolaters. Military funerals are pagan orgies of idolatrous blasphemy where they pray to the dunghill gods of Sodom and play taps to a fallen fool." On his website, he displays the American flag upside down. The only fool I saw yesterday was him and his three followers.

 

Phelps was first arrested in 1951 for assaulting a Pasadena, California police officer and has been arrested many times since.

 

So goes the background and history of the man who took away from the memory of a fallen soldier, who took away from the honor and dignity of a family desperately trying to make sense of their loved one's death, and he took away from the solidarity and sympathy of a community who simply wanted to honor one of their own.

 

When one set of freedoms clearly interferes and contravenes another set of freedoms, it seems clear to most of us whose freedoms should be protected. That was not done on C Street in McCook Friday afternoon.

 

Even though there were only four of them here protesting, they were surrounded by McCook police officers, Sheriff's deputies, and the Nebraska Highway Patrol. The walked up and down C Street between 5th street and 4th street, chanting their messages of hate and contempt, while dragging and walking on the American flag. As the memorial service began, they packed their wares, got in their van and attempted to leave. They were blocked at the intersection of B Street and 4th street so they had to turn around. As they drove back north, a van came out of the church parking lot and blocked them again, forcing them to back up and escape down an alley.

 

A woman observer, in a quiet voice, said to them as they were entering their van, "You should be ashamed of yourselves."

 

Yes they should.