Is That "Anti-war Left" or "Anti-gay Right"?

Submitted by Sheldon Rampton on

Media Matters caught Sean Hannity on Tuesday blaming the "anti-war left" for protesting at the funeral of a soldier killed in Iraq. In reality, the protesters were members of the Westboro Baptist Church (WBC) in Topeka, Kansas, which claims that terrorism and other disasters are divine retribution against America for the "sin" of tolerating homosexuality. WBC members, who held signs saying "God blew up the troops" and "Thank God for dead soldiers," also have a website called GodHatesAmerica.com, where the rhetoric of America's religious right sounds ominously like the rhetoric of Al Qaeda: "The American army is a fag army! ... WBC rejoices every time the Lord God in His vengeance kills or maims an American soldier with an Improvised Explosive Device."

Main Source: 
Media Matters for America, August 31, 2005
Topics: 
Left Wing
Right Wing
Gay / Lesbian
Media
Religion
Rhetoric
War / Peace

Comments

Katja replied on

This soldier was from my town, and it really pisses me off that anyone would do that at a soldier's funeral! We have a small dedicated peace movement here and they were accused because of that sina kurva Sean Hannity. I hear of any protest here and I KNEW it wasn't any peace group locally. Then I hear it's those 'Rvd' Phelps people! Unfortunately since most Americans are not familiar with Islamist extremist propaganda the way I am, they do not realize the similarities between it and extreme fundamentalist Christian views.
The ignorance of American fundamentalist Christians about doctrine, the true teachings of Jesus and the true history of the Church knows no end.
The duplicity of it's money grubbing leadership knows no bounds. Too bad we can't put the Islamist Extremists and the Extreme Chrisian Fundamentalists onto a large island no one cares about and have like some sort of televised cage match.
Sean Hanitty makes me want to break people and kill things anyway. I wondered what the local source of this evil rumor was.

We have very little variety in English language media. It's in three catagories ClearChannel owned C&W stations an oldies ClearChannel owned station, loudmouth rightwing AM station, and a semi left but not too left really FM rock station both also owned by ClearChannel, then there is NPR. So there is bland objectivity, which I usually opt for, and the other option is Spanish language media which ClearChannel is trying hard to buy up.

I listen to Shoutcast anymore since I can't stand hour upon hour of bad rock, bad rap, bad C&W music, classical, or jazz bores me at this point, and I can only take so much rightwing political harangue. I would feel the SAME way if it was exclusively leftwing political harangue for the same length of time dureing the day. I want variety and variety is no longer possible in English language radio broadcasting in the Yakim Valley, perhaps it's totally not possible in the whole of Eastern Washington.
I was told at school one of the bad things about the old Soviet Union was lack of choice and that the availability of choice in all matters of life was a mark of a free country like the United States. Maybe it was sort of true then but it sure isn't true now. I'm old enough to remember the change.

Oh by the way any God who wants someone's death for not minding the rules is a God who should be on a terror watch list...seriously... would you let someone like that on an airplane? I would not let these Christian fundamentalist extremists on a plane or a bus anymore than I'd let Al Qaida on a plane or a bus.

The reason those fanatics from 'Rvd' Phelp's church came to protest was that they heard this soldier was gay. The man has a son who is also serveing in Iraq.

I am not in support of the war, but it really makes me angry that this man and his family would be disrespected in such a disgusting manner. I think it was even more disgusting of Sean Hannity to deliberately misattribute the demonstrators and further that he did not appologize for this defamation of legitimate and sensitive people of our Valley who are working for peace. Every one of them is at pains to be decent toward soldiers and their families, and to state they respect the soldiers themselves and want to be of help to the ones who return wounded in body and mind.