Wow.

That was my first reaction, but unfortunately a one-word column isn’t that good of a read.

In the town of Topeka, Kan., lies the Westboro Baptist Church. The church runs two Web sites, www.godhatesfags.com and www.godhatesamerica.com.

I have never seen such an extremist point of view in my life.

Upon visiting these sites, I could not believe what I was seeing. It’s one thing to have a belief that homosexuality is wrong, but if your church’s Web site has a running tally of how many days Matthew Shepard has been in hell, you are taking it too far. I wish ‘taking it too far’ was the best way to describe these ignorant lunatics, but that is just the tip of the iceberg.

Let me tell you why these people think the way they do. They quote a passage in the Bible: “If a man also lie with mankind, as he lieth with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination,” Leviticus 18:22.

The reason God hates America? Because we are “fag-enablers,” and the United States is trying to stop the Westboro Baptist Church from spreading its message. Imagine that.

Oh, and God also hates Canada because it is a “homo-fascist state where the filthy fag agenda has become the law of the land.”

If one enters godhatesfags.com, one would see four main sections of the site.

In the Featured section, you can find stories which are of importance to the 150 who are a part of this church. Headlines here include “THANK GOD FOR 26 KILLED! WE WISH IT WERE 26,000!”

As if it wasn’t already clear that these people aren’t playing with a full deck, they celebrate when American soldiers die in combat. In one of the other main parts of the site, called “Love Crusades,” they post funerals of Americans killed in combat, so the church knows where to go to picket, protest and damn the dead soldier and all who attend the funeral. Also here is the article called “Thank God for IED’s.” IEDs are improvised explosive devices – roadside bombs.

In the Memorials part of the site you can find a picture of the Matthew Shepard monument, which they plan to put in a Casper, Wyo. park. It has a picture of his face and the Leviticus passage mentioned earlier. Also in that section you can see the memorial celebrating the December 2004 tsunami, which, according to them, purged the land of fag-tolerance.

These people actually made a memorial featuring two stick people having anal sex with a giant tidal wave right behind them. Who does that?

The News section of the site features links to articles promoting the extreme anti-homosexual agenda. One of the main ones is “God STILL hates America” (in case you weren’t sure). One of the most ridiculous ‘news’ stories I could find was titled “Don’t forget that God is killing your children in tornadoes and icy drownings, too – – because you fools hate God.” I mean come on, that’s just laughable. It’s not as if these people had any credit, decency or respect from anyone in the first place, but a headline like that only makes it harder for themselves.

I guess we Americans and Canadians should be on the lookout for tornadoes and icy drownings.

Wow.

Donny Sobnosky is a video and film programming major and columnist for the Daily Kent Stater. Contact him at [email protected].