This is what shocks me the most about American media. It’s literally character assasination on both sides of the argument. It looks a lot like a quarrel that you would see on the street more than a debate. Strange that it happens right in front of national news TV.

July 18, 2006 @ 11:40 pm | Comment

(snicker…) It reminds me of THIS classic piece of investigative journalism by Ms Betty Bowers: “Is President Bush A Girly Man?”

http://bettybowers.com/isbushgay.html

July 18, 2006 @ 11:52 pm | Comment

T, I agree it’s a sleazy quarrel. But it’s refreshing to see Fox News condemning the gay-bashers.

July 19, 2006 @ 1:21 am | Comment

wow. just wow. what a lunatic batshiat crazy fanatic. i hear alot of bad stuff about fox news, but that lady tore her a new one.

good stuff.

July 19, 2006 @ 1:32 am | Comment

Oh, if only it were in the studio, there could be a full on catfight. Hair pulling and eye scratching, flying folding chairs. Doesn’t Geraldo still work there?

It’s cathartic to see, Richard, but it’s still unbelievably depressing that there’s no voice of calm reason. I have trouble picturing a CBC or BBC journalist getting in a shouting match like that and not maintaining composure to rise above the fray.

I’m gonna take a shower now.

July 19, 2006 @ 4:17 am | Comment

Hardly dignified, but refreshing to see someone that bops the gay-bashers. Although if it had been me, I wouldn’t have gotten into a shouting match, and I wouldn’t have argued the Bible with her.

It’s people like Phelps who give religion a bad name. She cites the Bible, as if it was the be-all and end-all, the final word on what’s right and what’s not. I myself do not see why I have to acknowledge the correctness of what is in essence a bestseller novel that has been on the shelf for thousands of years. Yes, I know that many people base their lives on it, and it is their right. I have no problem with people taking ideas on morality from something; but the problem with fundamentalists is that they’re trying to literally insist that a work of fiction is literally true. And that is embarassing at best. Here with Phelps, it’s worse. Looking at her, I can actually believe that religion makes people mad (the same goes for the anchor, though I sympathise more with her because she doesn’t advocate hatred).

July 19, 2006 @ 4:30 am | Comment

After two minutes, I clicked the stop button and remembered why I don’t watch much TV.

July 19, 2006 @ 5:49 am | Comment

This is just more vitriol poured onto the public. A news organization should report the news, not make it. This was a well planned event in my opinion, so that Fox could make their point in a very public way. They even had an American flag waving in the background.

This clip is EXACTLY what is wrong in American television news today. I couldn’t even watch to the end of it.

July 19, 2006 @ 6:53 am | Comment

Sagrilarus, in retrospect I do agree with you. It’s theater and it’s melodrama. I was just stunned to see Fox News go after a gay basher with such fury. Of course, the real reason may be that it wasn’t the gay bashing they were going after, but the disrespect Phelps’ soldiers show to our soldiers killed in Iraq. After all, Fox News loves our little war.

July 19, 2006 @ 7:08 am | Comment

“Of course, the real reason may be that it wasn’t the gay bashing they were going after, but the disrespect Phelps’ soldiers show to our soldiers killed in Iraq. After all, Fox News loves our little war”

Agreed.

July 19, 2006 @ 7:54 am | Comment

Shouldn’t “God Hates Fags” be the name of a British Mormon anti-smoking campaign?

(…ducking from rotten tomatoes…)

July 19, 2006 @ 5:21 pm | Comment

You crybabies need to get a grip!

(Shirley is Pastor Phelps’ daughter, not his sister, by the way, and that’s as close to accurate or sound reasoning any of you got.)

While you’re all busy pontificating and wallowing in your perceived intellect, america is doomed! Do you fools think God is going to set a standard in this earth, and then ignore an entire society who disobeys it? Do you think He’s a big ignorant blow hard like you arrogant asses? No, you know better. It’s engraved on your heart that there is a God, and He requires that you obey Him. You’ve been raised as a generation of self-indulgent squally brats, pretending what you think matters more than what God thinks. So the minute someone shows up who tells you, and your screeching media icons, that you’re all headed straight to hell, because america has made a vocation out of rebellion and disobedience against the Lord your God, you start crying like stuck pigs. Then a bunch of grown people, who pretend to be loving, tolerant, open-minded, and willing to consider any new idea, start name-calling like there’s no tomorrow. You look like a pile of fat babies throwing a fit.

What you all need to do is this:

1) SHUT THE HELL UP! No one cares what you think — least of all your Creator.
2) Go to http://www.thesignsofthetimes.net and watch all the videos.
3) SHUT THE HELL UP! You’ve got nothing of value to offer ANYONE.
4) Crack a Bible. Read it!
5) SHUT THE HELL UP! You’re illiterate and Bible dumb.
6) Obey!
7) SHUT THE HELL UP! All that pompous prevaricating you’re doing is putting you squarely in the cross-hairs of a raging mad God. Your duty, always and forever, is to OBEY! So do it!

Magormissabib.

Margie Phelps

July 19, 2006 @ 5:54 pm | Comment

Margie, does that mean you won’t go out with me?

July 19, 2006 @ 5:58 pm | Comment

>linking to a clip that’s apparently several weeks old.>linking to a clip that’s apparently several weeks old.>linking to a clip that’s apparently several weeks old.>linking to a clip that’s apparently several weeks old.>linking to a clip that’s apparently several weeks old.>linking to a clip that’s apparently several weeks old.>linking to a clip that’s apparently several weeks old.>linking to a clip that’s apparently several weeks old.< Does this make it less valid? No. Well aged, sometimes. But a point is a point no matter when it occurs. And it still marks the end of the inquiry. --ml

July 19, 2006 @ 7:16 pm | Comment

>linking to a clip that’s apparently several weeks old.>linking to a clip that’s apparently several weeks old.>linking to a clip that’s apparently several weeks old.>linking to a clip that’s apparently several weeks old.

A klutz moment.

Sorry
Beg Pardon
Gomenasai
Et cetera and so forth.

–ml

July 19, 2006 @ 7:19 pm | Comment

I have to agree with Sagrilarus and Sonagi. What kind of journalism is this? This mocked up interview was making a farce of what would otherwise be a very interesting topic of discussion. Sorry Richard, I couldn’t finish watching it either and I’m glad that I didn’t subscribe to Fox News.

July 20, 2006 @ 12:35 am | Comment

6) Obey!
7) SHUT THE HELL UP! All that pompous prevaricating you’re doing is putting you squarely in the cross-hairs of a raging mad God. Your duty, always and forever, is to OBEY! So do it!

Obey? Hmm… this “raging mad god” of yours reminds me of my government…

Can anyone tell me what Margie’s doing here at TPD?

July 20, 2006 @ 8:00 am | Comment

Margie is a spammer driving traffic to her site. It’s a canned message — ignore it.

July 20, 2006 @ 8:35 am | Comment

Damn! I thought she was flirting with me.

July 20, 2006 @ 3:31 pm | Comment

Interesting clip, but it’s not all that different from the Fox News M.O. in which pundits yell and shout at their guests and scold them for their views or behavior. Pretty typical I’m-right-you’re-wrong screaming match for Fox, in which she says “if you have a problem with America, why don’t you leave?” – which is pretty close to the sort of thing that the Fox blowhards have shouted at well-meaning liberals right before cutting their microphones off.

It’s nice, always, to see the Phelps clan mocked in public, but there’s something problematic about a vocally anti-gay network like Fox taking this stand. We’ve seen the same thing in American society since the 1960s regarding racism – in the movies, in television, in journalism, bigotry has often been depicted as something that cartoonishly ugly, unmistakably evil hillbillies do. Just as any rational audience members had no trouble hissing the glowering caricature who wanted to lynch black children, nobody watching Fox News really wants to side with clearly insane, inarticulate, hate-filled (and, in keeping with the media stereotypes for such bigots, downright ugly, particularly in comparison with the generic prom queen host of this particular news show) zealots in killing patriotic soldiers.

Notice the anchor first gets angry at the woman for spreading vicious lies the dead soldiers being gay (“We’re talking defamation here… Have you gone on the web and said that his son is gay?”). And then, before going on to condemn the idea that the God-fearing should “kill fags” or that “God hates fags,” she grounds the anti-anti-gay stuff in the real crime of “[thanking] God for 9-11,” and all those images of the protesters holding signs that don’t say “God Hates Fags” but “God Hates America [dot com].” And a lot of the rest of the shouting match has to do with who has better knowledge of the Bible (-Verse 17. -No, it’s Verse 18. -17! -Well it goes into Verse 18!). It’s not like Fox was sticking its neck out over anything controversial, even among its bile-consuming demographic.

Basically, whether or not this was conscious design, this cartoonish portrait of bigotry does the job of reassuring viewers that just because they are anti-gay marriage, and just because they equate homosexual unions with polygamy, bestiality and god knows what else, they aren’t racist. Those ugly, evil people over there who want the terrorists to win – those are the racists.

Don’t get me wrong, I think it’s a positive step that we’re reaching the day when even the right wing gasbags on Fox News think that killing homosexuals is a bad thing – those violent racist caricatures actually do exist and lives have been lost because of it. But I fear this is the sort of self-congratulatory, guilt-assuaging rationalization that allows bigotry and inequality to persist. Even, as those at Fox News are currently preaching, to make it institutionalized.

Also, I’ve seen the Phelps clan on tv several times since the early 90s, and I don’t know of any other time when one of them has been on the air LIVE. Really, I don’t know what Fox News was expecting.

July 21, 2006 @ 1:42 am | Comment

Interesting clip, but it’s not all that different from the Fox News M.O. in which pundits yell and shout at their guests and scold them for their views or behavior. Pretty typical I’m-right-you’re-wrong screaming match for Fox, in which she says “if you have a problem with America, why don’t you leave?” – which is pretty close to the sort of thing that the Fox blowhards have shouted at well-meaning liberals right before cutting their microphones off.

It’s nice, always, to see the Phelps clan mocked in public, but there’s something problematic about a vocally anti-gay network like Fox taking this stand. We’ve seen the same thing in American society since the 1960s regarding racism – in the movies, in television, in journalism, bigotry has often been depicted as something that cartoonishly ugly, unmistakably evil hillbillies do. Just as any rational audience members had no trouble hissing the glowering caricature who wanted to lynch black children, nobody watching Fox News really wants to side with clearly insane, inarticulate, hate-filled (and, in keeping with the media stereotypes for such bigots, downright ugly, particularly in comparison with the generic prom queen host of this particular news show) zealots in killing patriotic soldiers.

Notice the anchor first gets angry at the woman for spreading vicious lies the dead soldiers being gay (“We’re talking defamation here… Have you gone on the web and said that his son is gay?”). And then, before going on to condemn the idea that the God-fearing should “kill fags” or that “God hates fags,” she grounds the anti-anti-gay stuff in the real crime of “[thanking] God for 9-11,” and all those images of the protesters holding signs that don’t say “God Hates Fags” but “God Hates America [dot com].” And a lot of the rest of the shouting match has to do with who has better knowledge of the Bible (-Verse 17. -No, it’s Verse 18. -17! -Well it goes into Verse 18!). It’s not like Fox was sticking its neck out over anything controversial, even among its bile-consuming demographic.

Basically, whether or not this was conscious design, this cartoonish portrait of bigotry does the job of reassuring viewers that just because they are anti-gay marriage, and just because they equate homosexual unions with polygamy, bestiality and god knows what else, they aren’t racist. Those ugly, evil people over there who want the terrorists to win – those are the racists.

Don’t get me wrong, I think it’s a positive step that we’re reaching the day when even the right wing gasbags on Fox News think that killing homosexuals is a bad thing – those violent racist caricatures actually do exist and lives have been lost because of it. But I fear this is the sort of self-congratulatory, guilt-assuaging rationalization that allows bigotry and inequality to persist. Even, as those at Fox News are currently preaching, to make it institutionalized.

Also, I’ve seen the Phelps clan on tv several times since the early 90s, and I don’t know of any other time when one of them has been on the air LIVE. Really, I don’t know what Fox News was expecting.

July 21, 2006 @ 1:44 am | Comment