Westboro Baptist Church Pickets Obama Girls And Blue Collar Comedy Tour’s Ron White

The infamous Westboro Baptist Church is at it again with another one of their asinine protests. The Kansas-based group—founded by Fred Phelps—believes that all our country’s problems occur due to our acceptance of homosexuals. Usually they target military funerals with their cruel protests. This time they are going after Obama. With their subtlety-named picket group, God Hates Fags, they staged a protest this morning outside of Sidwell Friends—the school attended by Sasha and Malia Obama.

But the Westboro Baptist Church doesn’t always target world leaders or mourning families of fallen soldiers. No. A few months back I spent three days with Shirley Phelps and the Westboro Baptist Church as part of my book, The American Dream. Yes, three glorious days with one of America’s most notorious families as they attempted to spread their message right in their hometown of Topeka Kansas—to less loftier targets. How does it feel to be on their shoes during of one of their protests? Does it actually make an impact or are they simply looked at as kitschy absurdist street theater with a hate message.

Here’s how it all went down:

GO TO HELL FUNNYMAN

Tonight there are bigger fish to fry. “We’re going to picket a performer who’s in town,” Shirley Phelps beams.

“Really! Who?”

“Ron White.” she replies, referring to the star—along with Larry the Cable Guy—of the Blue Collar Comedy Tour.

“You mean Tator Salad?!?” I exclaim, mentioning him by nickname. I’m confused,and more than a little delighted. “We’re going to picket standup comedy!?” (Pause.) “Is Ron White gay?””

“He’s a filthy adulterer.” Shirley’s sister Abigail contributes as we plod past a schoolyard. “He’s the one who always has the bourbon.”

“Do you find Ron White unfunny?”

Shirley thinks for a moment. She smiles. “He’s got some funny stuff.”

“Then why picket his comedy show?”

“He’s got a pulpit,” she stresses. “We like him, but they all could be teaching God and the way of life. They have responsibility!”

“Tator Salad!?” I once again inquire out of disbelief. “Isn’t a comedian’s only responsibility is to get laughs?”

“They can do that and be faithful and sermon about the Lord.”

Shirley and I aren’t on the same page with numerous things—this being one of them.

“Do you picket other performers?”

“Yeah!” Shirley turns to her sister. “Who’s that one singer?”

“Burt Bacharach?” I randomly blurt and sing a few bars of “Do You Know the Way to San Jose.”

Joke’s on me: “Yeah, we’ve had him, yeah.” She then beams like a schoolgirl, “Jerry Seinfeld talked about us onstage.”

“What did he say?”

“Something like, ‘Did you see those picketers outside?’”

(Pause.) “Okay.”

“And who’s that dyke?” Shirley asks Abigail.

“Paula Poundstone.”

“Do you think she’s funny?”

Shirley chuckles. “That zucchini bit she has is pretty funny.” Boasting: “We’ve had several people cancel because they heard we were coming!”

Is it out of fear or just another reason to avoid this redneck hellhole?

Becky, also kin of Shirley, picks us up along the way in a minivan; a stringy-haired woman with glasses wearing a The Sign of the Times sweatshirt. 

“Larry the Cable Guy used to be so funny, then he got nasty,” Becky says. “Apparently if you’re not in the dregs of the sewer, you’re not funny!”

“What are you doing watching Larry the Cable guy?” I inquire.

“Flipping channels.” (She mimes.) “Sometimes you got to watch something for a couple of minutes to see what kind of trainwreck it is.”

Pulling up early to the Topeka Performing Arts Center, a large, gray building in the heart of a dismal downtown in a culturally repressed part of the planet, fans of standup comedy slowly trickle in for the show. Already a few members of Westboro Baptist Church—mostly woman and teenaged boys—are perched on the sidewalk with such visually colorful, warm, and inviting signs as:

Fag Troops, God Hates America!

Fags Doom Nations!

It looks like something straight out of The Onion—but without the irony. From the sign pile in the back of a pickup, I grab, Thank God for $10.9 Million, being that it seems more bitter than offensive. As comedy fans do bewildered double-takes, I procure a position next to another kin of Shirley, whose placard reads, Thank God for 9/11. She stands with an older glossy-eyed teen. Quiet. Bespectacled. Somber.

“What’s the video camera for?” I ask the woman.

“For our protection,” she replies. “If anyone attacks us, I’ll video them.”

“Fuck you, dumbasses!” a man screams driving by in a pickup.

With the pep of a callous cheerleader, Shirley rouses the group, suggesting a musical number from their picket-song repertoire. “What’s a good harmony song?” she poses to the group. “How about ‘This Land Is Fag Land’?” If little Daniel comes, that’s his favorite.”

Instead they settle on a military song parody with a “funny” twist:

First we fight for the fags

Now they’re coming home in body bags

And your army goes marching to hell!

The comedy crowd, mostly clad in baseball caps and denim, watches in bemused disbelief at at the musical sideshow spectacle.

“That’s not even funny,” a guy yells.

“What’s the message!?”

With the IED God’s blown them up

No toes left for toe tags

Thank God for IEDs!

The women really ham it up in campy style, singing and having corny fun. It’s enjoyable for them. They crack their voices in a zany fashion at the end for funny emphasis.

“You’re retarded!” screams a man with a mullet.

He’s right. I do feel retarded—very retarded! As I stand in a sea of idiotic sign wavers, I’m worthy of a bag of thrown urine (though I hope it doesn’t happen).

Then, the reinforcements arrive! Cars pull up. Dozens of little children jump out and come running out of breath; huge smiles and the joys of childhood plastered on their faces.

Like a candy-filled piñata just burst, the cute little tykes jockey for signs. An excited, chubby, red-haired girl grabs Fags Are Worthy of Death. 

With the addition of small children, a rousing rendition of “God Hates America,” breaks out.

God hates America,

Land of the fags . . .

Reactions are mixed:

“I think God hates the Phelps!”

“That would be good if you believed in him.

“Then why are you here in America!?” a chubby cowboy with a goatee snaps. “Go back to Canada!”

Fending off the onslaught of heckles, Shirley retorts, “Obey your Bible!”

Boom! You’ve been served! We’re taking down Ron White comedy fans left and right. Sure, no immediate impact (if any), but we’re planting seeds in the subconscious of standup-comedy-going heathens.

Closer to showtime, the jovial crowd now arrives in droves. Laughing. Smiling. Until they hear the melodic sounds of “This Land Is Fagland,” being sung by small children. With the most vigor, even the tiniest join in, big smiles, swaying their heads like it were the Barney the Dinosaur song. The chubby, red-haired girl actually jumps while singing—she’s that happy.

A biker stands on top of the stairs and mockingly pretends to conduct the picketers.

Two redneck guys act like they’re a couple, planting a kiss on each other’s cheek, achieving the opposite of the WBC intended actions—encouraging small-city gay tolerance, while not a single damn passerby agrees with their statements.

Focusing his attention on the children, a kindly man wearing a leather vest comes over. “There’s a whole world that’s not full of hate,” he sermons. The kids seem confused. The man gets down on one knee to address them. “You see, young man, hating people is wrong. . . .”

Shirley is outraged. “PROTECT THOSE CHILDREN!” she screams.

“You see, you don’t have to hate. . . .”

Code Red! The picketers close in around the children to whisk them away from the bad man.

“He can’t talk to these kids like that!” she barks. “Sir, have you been drinking?” (To the group.) “He has drinking breath!”

Another Code Red! A girthy guy jumps on the top of the stairs and slowly undoes the belt on his jeans. “Everyone turn your heads!” screams Shirley. There’s much fanfare. The Westboro Baptist Church covers their eyes like it was Raiders of the Lost Ark right before all the Nazis melt.

The guy drops trou, moons, and starts slapping his chubby butt cheeks at the God Hates Fags picketers as Ron White fans squeal with approval.

“Is it okay to look?” asks Shirley’s perky college-aged niece, Libby, who hides her eyes.

“Yes,” I say (butt cheeks are still being slapped).

“Let me put this on here,” requests a large woman emerging from the crowd, wielding a bumper sticker that says, You Can’t Fix Stupid. Direct face-to-face conflict! Outstretching her arm, she steers her attention towards Libby’s Fags Doom Nations sign. Once again, Code Red!

The large woman focuses on me. “Can I stick this on your sign?”

“Oh, you better not,” I reply sarcastically.

Directly across Thank God for $10.9 Million the bumper sticker is slapped.

Libby immediately tears it off. With concern for the team she asks, “Are you all right?”

“I think so,” I reply with faux shock.

“You can’t tell what a person is going to do when the freaks deface signs.”

Yes, freaks: the one’s who don’t picket standup comedy shows.

Now it gets personal: “Keep your whore hands off of people’s property.” Shirley barks. “Do you know what you do with your whore hands!?”

“Are you calling me a whore!?” the large woman screams from the stairs, gesturing her head Jerry Springer–style. “Do you want to come here and call me a whore!?”

Where did the love go?

Shirley eyes the local rednecks with disgust: “This is the best our country has to offer!” (Really a reflection on fans of the Blue Collar Comedy Tour.)

Back in the minivan Shirley seems giddy, almost euphoric, all wide-eyed and smiles. This was fun for her.

“How did this compare to other pickets?” I ask trying to gage against, say, a soldier’s funeral.

“It was a little rowdier,” Shirley professes with a grin. “Hon, they’re all middle-aged drinking freaks.”

“What do you feel you’ve accomplished?”

Without hesitation: “The nation is leading towards destruction so fast.”

More talk of the Bible, verses quoted, Jonah and the whale mentioned, Shirley talking more at me than to me, seeming happy to have someone to put on the full show for.

Harmon Leon is Freedom Haters.org