My Best Friend Heath Ledger, an Iraq Veteran, and The Westboro Nuts
I believe it was on Thursday night that, after hearing some obnoxious television host refer to “Heath” ten times in two minutes that I realized I was watching Entertainment Tonight with Mary Hart–a show I hadn’t watched in years. For those that watch Entertainment Tonight all the time, you know that the show is about nothing except “ET’s” skill at being on the scene of whatever celebrity event is happening–in this case–the death of Heath Ledger. Not only did I find out that Mary Hart is “Heath’s” best friend (why else would she keep calling him by his first name over and over), I found out that “ET” was “first on the scene” or maybe Hart said “ET was there when” when “Heath’s” wife “Michelle” and daughter “Matilda Rose” returned home from Europe.
Its obnoxious–this pretend familiarity we seem to crave with celebrities. I’m certain guilty of using it to belittle them; calling Rudy Giuliani, “Rudy” for instance, and of course everyone in the nation refers to Hillary Clinton as “Hillary” as if she’s their best friend of worst enemy. Still, there was something about the news coverage of Heath Ledger’s death that was, to put it frankly, disgusting. And it didn’t stop with ET. Because of Ledger’s choice to star in Brokeback Mountain, conservative radio and TV host John Gibson took Ledger’s death as an opportunity to mock him and homosexuality. From Think Progress:
“Playing an audio clip of the iconic quote, “I wish I knew how to quit you” from Ledger’s gay romance movie Brokeback Mountain, Gibson disdainfully quipped, “Well, he found out how to quit you.” Laughing, Gibson then played another clip from Brokeback Mountain in which Ledger said, “We’re dead,” followed by his own, mocking “We’re dead” before playing the clip again.”
And the homophopic Westboro Baptist Church, known for picketing the funerals of American soldiers killed in Iraq, also plans to picket Ledger’s funeral. (Westboro has a pretty advanced website. I wonder why their press releases look like they were created by elementary school kids?) And lucky Reno, Westboro is also picketing hometown hero Staff Sgt. Sean Gaul’s funeral today, actually, right now as I’m typing this. I was going to go, but these days I have little patience for hate and ugly, and I didn’t want to encourage their efforts to fill me with hate for them. I am glad that other Reno patriots will be there to protect Gaul’s family from the Westboro hate. My prayers are with Paul’s family.
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The Phelpsians are clearly monstrous in their hate of freedom. I’m utterly convinced that they do what they do only to become some sort of Xtian martyrs, because sooner or later, someone’s going to follow their little caravan out of a town and shoot the hell out of them in the middle of the night.
And I will be happy when that day comes.
I’m actually glad I didn’t go. I would’ve started a fight. The Phelpsian monsters deserve a brutal beating for their hatred of everyone and everything that doesn’t kowtow to them. My wife’s two sons are serving our country, and both have been in Iraq. And I’m sure they would join me in defending their fallen brothers and sisters from their hate.
I can only take solace in the fact that even most of their fundie bretheren despise the Phelpsians as much as I do.
Did they actually show up? I went by to see the hate mongers in person. I didn’t see them. I was happy to see all the freedom riders there though.
Personally, I think anybody that’s so homophobic over 2 people of the same sex that love each other are probably in the closet themselves. So in my opinion, Phelps and his group are in the closet.”
Which the word (homophobic usage) they are so proud to use F_GS… must really stand for Freaks Against God and Freaks Against Gays. Shame on them!!
I heard on the news that the Phelpsians fled in the face of being severely outnumbered. Even ‘ol Fred’s megaphone can’t stand up to the sweet sounds of a few hundred motorcycles. My thanks go out to the Patriot Guard for standing up to face the hate and shield the grieving family.