Phelps to Protest Coretta Scott King Funeral

Via Jasmyn Cannick comes more interesting news about Coretta Scott King’s funeral. Apparently, Fred Phelps is bringing his group to protest the funeral due to King’s support for lesbian & gay equality.

The virulently anti-gay Westboro Baptist Church from Topeka, Kansas, announced Feb. 3 that it would picket the funeral of civil rights icon Coretta Scott King, widow of Martin Luther King Jr.

… Westboro Baptist Church, headed by Fred Phelps and known for its “God Hates Fags” signs carried at protests, said it is picketing the funeral because Mrs. King believed in equality for gay people.

Mrs. King’s longstanding support for gay issues included speaking out publicly against a proposed federal constitutional amendment to ban same-sex marriage. She was also a vocal supporter of HIV/AIDS awareness.

There’s even a flyer announcing the protest. There are also a couple of ironies here worth further examination.

The funeral will be held at the New Birth Missionary Bapsitst Church, where the “virulently homophobic” Eddie Long is pastor and where King’s daughter Bernice (who joined Long in at least one march against same-sex marriage) is an elder. No doubt Phelps presence underscores an aspect of King’s legacy — her support for lesbian & gay equality — that would otherwise be downplayed at the funeral. Long and Bernice (if not the rest of the family) would probably rather not draw attention to that fact.

The other irony will likely be lost on Long, Bernice, and their flock. It would be fitting for Phelps and his group to be invited into the funeral once they show up. After all,  Phelps and his group have at least one belief in common with Long and his followers. But, however like attracts like, it’s more probable that Long and his followers will utterly fail to see a bit of themselves in Phelps and his protesters.

I attribute it to something a favorite professor of mine from college used to call “self evasion of the mind.”

… I keep remembering a phrase used by a favorite professor of mine: “self evasion of the mind.”

… It was some time before I recognized “self evasion of the mind” as the act of contorting the mind so as not to have to see or acknowledge what is obvious to anyone who simply looks. [emphasis added]

If Long and his congregation look with disdain on Phelps and his protestors, rather than seeing them as comrades in arms, I’ll write it off to a write it off to a long term case of “self evasion of the mind”; one Long and his flock probably don’t even realize they have, though it’s pretty obvious to some. To borrow a quote that Long and his church members should recognize, “He who has ears to hear, let him hear.” Most likely, they won’t, and maybe that’s because they suffer from a terminal case of “self evasion of the mind.”