Well, I suppose in a technical sense he’s dead.
And depending on what you believe, you might suppose his immortal soul
lives on in some other realm. I like to imagine he’s been astonished into
silent weeping by the radically inclusive love of God, and that the
self-loathing he tried to slather onto others here on earth has been flaking
off under the force of that love.
I like to imagine that his old mantra, “God hates fags,” has been
replaced by a new one: “Even me? You love even
me?”
But when I say that Fred Phelps isn’t dead, I mean that his spirit of dogmatic
pugnacity lives on. That signature Phelpsian hatred—wrapped up in a message of
divine mandate, bow-tied with Bible-verses, and then shoved in our faces as if
it were the gift of Christ to humanity—is alive and well.
And it comes at us in more and less blatant forms.
