We don't normally use this blog to comment on current events, however, the recent announcement by the Westboro Baptist Church concerning Heath Ledger's funeral provides a lesson too valuable to be ignored. As many know, the WBC is a Kansas based church that has set out on a mission of fighting the evils of homosexuality and "fag enabling" which are running rampant in this country. WBC members frequently protest the funerals of gays, allies, and fallen soldiers, the latter falling under the category of fag enablers, men and women who fight under the banner of a fag-loving nation. As such, this group plans of protesting the late Mr. Ledger's funeral because of his sympathetic portrayal of a gay cowboy. Ignoring the glaring fact that America by and large openly hates homosexuals, the WBC raises an important issue.

Many religious moderates are standing on the side of reason in regard to the WBC and its protests, calling members of the group extremists guilty of misinterpreting the bible. Here arises a serious problem, one which has been mentioned previously on this blog. For functional atheists, which is to say those who lead their everyday lives in a completely secular fashion save for the occasional prayer for assistance, holiday celebration, or reference to an anticipated eternity of bliss, there is this idea that the bible is open to interpretation, and moreover, the proper interpretation is one that ignores most of the rules contained therein. Therefore, in the minds of functional atheists (better known as religious moderates), the members of the WBC are indeed extremists who have taken biblical text too far, out of context, and what have you.

I would argue that the bible was not intended to be interpreted; it is not presented as a poem or a story in the literary sense of the word, but rather as a historical account of god and his instructions to man. Interpretation has stemmed only from cognitive dissonance as believers struggle in vain to reconcile their desire to believe in an afterlife with the fact that time and time again science has demonstrated the bible to be filled with utter nonsense.

Yet for the sake of argument, let us imagine that the bible indeed is open to interpretation as the religious moderate would believe. Certainly, a reasonable interpretation would consist of reading the text as is. No one pretends to imagine that when Frost claims to have taken the road less traveled he really means the beaten path, and here we are discussing metaphor-filled poetry. Accordingly, we cannot in good faith pretend that when god declares lying with mankind as with woman to be an "abomination" there isn't the slimmest chance he means just that. If such is the case, it would follow that the WBC is not in fact a cult of extremists, but rather a church of righteous crusaders doing their damnest to save Americans from eternal torment. Certainly no religious moderate would complain if one were to protest the funeral of a mass murderer, for god tells us that "thou shall not kill." In the same vein, the WBC takes god at his word and acts accordingly.

Now, is the WBC in fact a group of fanatics, bigots and hate mongers? Most certainly. They ignore the fact that their supposed god also stresses the importance of forgiveness, fail to fuss over the myriad other inane rules god arbitrarily laid out, and, through the fervor with which they've latched onto one biblical line, reveal themselves as nothing more than backwards bigots capitalizing on the fact that outward gay-bashing goes unpunished in a nation which refuses to allow two tax-paying, law-abiding citizens to enjoy the legal rights of a married couple. However, it is only we secularist who have the right to point out such things. For anyone who goes to church on Sunday or prays at night or lights a certain candle for a certain period of time all because the imaginary man in the sky told him so is barred from the conversation, unless of course, he's calling to WBC to say "hello pot, just wanted to let you know that you're black."