This winter has been abominably long, dreary, and frustrating, but on March 19 I saw the first sign of an emergent spring—Fred Phelps, the notorious hatemonger who founded the Westboro Baptist Church, died.
There was still snow on the ground, and more in the forecast, but I could easily have donned an outfit that is better suited to Pride.
For me, his death is cause for celebration.
Having first emerged as a significant public figure in the aftermath of Matthew Shepard’s murder, Phelps became a symbol of everything that is wrong with the United States today. However, the worst manifestations of hate in the United States and Canada come from those who would consider themselves more moderate than Phelps himself.
I grew up in a world where Phelps’ “God Hates Fags” signs were often visible in the media, without comment. Despite abhorring Phelps’ tactics, the fundamental truth was that a significant portion of the population in both the United States and Canada agreed with him, and still do.
In fact, institutional and official responses to Phelps’ hate emerged only when he started picketing the funerals of soldiers killed in American imperial wars.
Much as Phelps revelled in those deaths, I revel in his.
Byproducts of the liberal humanism that dominates our moral discourses in the West are the notions that we should romanticize death, and that we should not speak ill of the dead. Instead, we are told that we should find forgiveness and compassion.
This effectively erases the harm that the actions of hatemongers like Phelps have caused. This appeal to decorum denies justice to the survivors of the violence that people like Phelps have wrought and places the needs of the dead above the needs of the living.
It reflects an absurd and entrenched fear that, one day, we might be held to account for our actions.
There is, however, a dishonest and uneven application of this appeal to decorum. We are chastised if we do not celebrate the deaths of the enemies of Western hegemony, like Moammar Gadhafi and Hugo Chávez. But we are condemned for celebrating the deaths of its proponents, like Margaret Thatcher and Ariel Sharon.
We should give the dead only the same amount of respect as in life. Accordingly, Phelps will find no forgiveness, nor compassion, from me.
In his death, in fact, there is a certain justice, and I wish only that I had had the chance to celebrate it much, much earlier.
