Hi folks.

This will be short and to the point.  For years now I’ve written all of you about my different mood swings and whatever song had resonated with me on any given week.  Tonight, I fight anger in the midst of somber reality.

Many of you know I prefer not to expose myself to the news very often.  The “downer” of so many things going on around us is not the space I care to live in.  I prefer continuing to strive for my dreams without the harsh realities all around.  Tonight I finally decided to read about this troubled man who many of you have already heard and read about (http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/40997616/ns/us_news-crime_and_courts/?GT1=43001).  As Senator McConnell put it, this troubled individual tried to attack our democracy at its core by brutally murdering/maiming several people during what was to be an exchange of political ideas with her constituents.  In the line of fire, a 9 year old girl was fatally wounded – her claim to fame was having been featured in a book of children born on 9/11/2001.  She was attending the morning event (away from school) because of her interest in government.

But what troubled me in this article more than anything was the concluding comment:
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“Meanwhile, the leader of Westboro Baptist Church, an anti-gay Kansas-based church best known for picketing the funerals of slain U.S.  soldiers and gay-pride gatherings, said its members will picket the funerals of the 9-year-old girl and five others killed in Saturday’s attack.  In a video, Fred Phelps says God sent the shooter to avenge the nation’s sins.

“Thank God for the violent shooter,” Phelps proclaims.

“We will remind the living that you can still repent and obey.  This is ultimatum time with God.”

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Friends and family, I’m tired of this person’s perversion of the gospel.  I shared with some of you a month ago as this man so boldly called his family and worshippers (most of whom are family) to picket the funeral of Elizabeth Edwards (the late former wife of former Senator John Edwards) that something had to be done about this man.

Well, a month has come and gone and I’ve done nothing.  Now I hope to stir all of you into action…and I intend to take action as well.

I’ve done some research on this “church” and have found that it is not a member of any known affiliation of churches.  They call themselves an “independent” Baptist Church but, to date, none of the independent church systems show Westboro Baptist as a “member church.” The same is true for the Calvinist and Primitive Baptist church systems that WBC claims to pattern themselves after.  In fact, those organizations both vehemently reject both Phelps and his “church”.

Friends…what seems to give this man his energy is the attention.  Every major news outlet seems to cover him.  Political pot-stirrers like O’Reilly dog him on air, and Michael Moore has made a movie including some of the nutty stuff this guy does.  And what happens?  He does it more!

It’s time to stop paying attention to him.  It’s time these news organizations stopped covering him and his antics.  It’s time we turn off the power-feed this guy gets every time he calls in to say his church is gonna show up somewhere to picket something, that telephone line needs to get disconnected.  Forget faith for a moment, we as AMERICANS need to put this guy out to pasture, and the only way I can think of right now is for all of us to email the news outlets and tell them to just flat stop.  We need a nationwide flood of emails to every news organization that says to go deaf every time Phelps or one of his members calls in to say where they’re headed next.  And when he shows up, we need to do what the college in Wisconsin did…we show up in the thousands to tell them to pack up and go home (he had a 2 hour picket planned that his folks ran and hid from after only a few minutes).

Here are some email addresses to get you started:

for Fox News, email newsmanager@foxnews.com

for NBC, use this page to copy and paste your comments: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/10285339

for ABC, use this page to copy and paste your comments: http://abcnews.go.com/Site/page?id=3271346&cat=ABC%20News%20Other

for CBS, use this page to copy and paste your comments: http://www.cbsnews.com/htdocs/feedback/fb_news_form.shtml?tag=ftr

for CNN, use this page to copy and paste your comments: http://www.cnn.com/feedback/tips/newstips.html

and for the Associated Press, email info@ap.org and put it to the attention of Jerry Schwartz, Editor

Please know, I understand that one of the great things about this country is our ability to express ourselves freely, and this man and his followers are doing just that.  Even our own Supreme Court has wrestled with just how to handle this man and his actions.  But just as he has free speech, we also have our own mechanisms with which we can choose to shut him down…and this, to this point, is the only peaceful way I’ve been able to come up with.  Obviously, many of you are smarter than me…if there are better ideas, please share.  But folks, let’s take some action.  Let’s stop sitting down angry when we read of this man and his stories…and let’s take action…TONIGHT!

And as far as the faith issue that I delayed commenting on earlier…I don’t particularly believe that any one of us has a monopoly on understanding the Word of God.  Nor do I believe that any one of us has a monopoly on understanding God’s actions from time to time.  What I believe is simple, I’m here to plant seeds and let God farm the rest…that’s a fairly simple task.  Any *man* that has the audacity to say in a presumed authoritative way that these awful things are happening from one minute to the next because God’s wrath is at hand is just plain nutty to me.  Let’s do what we can to tune him out…and asking the news organizations to help us with that certainly seems like a good first step to me.

God bless all of you.

Tim