Dum Pendebat Filius

Michelle Malkin and her crony Bryan Preston are telling their readers that “God Hates Fags” preacher Fred Phelps “was a Gore delegate and Democrat fund-raiser.” They’ve put up a cute link to a Google search: fred phelps democrat gore.

Go ahead and perform that Google search and you’ll see that the number-one result is to Phelps’ Wikipedia article (which I linked to in the preceding paragraph). What does it say?

Support for Al Gore

Phelps supported Al Gore in the 1988 and 1992 Democratic Party primary elections. In his 1984 Senate race, Gore opposed a “gay bill of rights” and stated that homosexuality was not something that “society should affirm.” Phelps has stated that he supported Gore because of these earlier comments. According to Phelps, members of the Westboro Baptist Church helped run Gore’s 1988 campaign in Kansas. Phelps’ son, Fred Phelps Jr., hosted a Gore fundraiser, which Al and Tipper Gore attended, at his home in Topeka. Fred Phelps, Jr. served as a Gore delegate to the 1988 Democratic National Convention. Gore spokesman Dag Vega declined to comment [in 2000]: “We are not dignifying those stories with a response.”

Notice it was it was not Phelps, but his son Fred Junior, who was the Gore delegate and Democrat fundraiser. Whoops…

It’s true that Al Gore’s views on homosexuality were, in the early 1980s, somewhat less than enlightened. According to that Feb. 2000 Boston Globe article (Wikipedia’s source for the Gore quote, which I linked to above),

[B]oth candidates [Gore and Bradley] have taken more liberal positions [in Campaign 2000] than they held on gay rights early in their careers.

For instance, as a Tennessee congressman running for Senate in 1984, Gore opposed a measure outlawing discrimination based on sexual orientation.

”I don’t pretend to have an understanding of homosexuality that sustains a discussion of its roots … but I do not believe it is simply an acceptable alternative that society should affirm,” Gore told the Nashville Tennessean at the time.

During that race Gore also said he would not take campaign contributions from gay rights groups.

Of course, Al Gore later became a supporter of gay rights. And when he did, Fred Phelps jumped ship… big-time. The Wikipedia article continues directly:

Opposition to Al Gore and Bill Clinton

During the 1992 presidential campaign, Phelps protested Hillary Clinton during a campaign speech in support of the Clinton-Gore ticket at the University of Kansas on October 14, 1992. In Bill Clinton’s second presidential campaign, Phelps and the Westboro church also opposed Clinton and Gore because of the administration’s support for gay rights. The entire Westboro congregation picketed a 1997 inaugural ball, denouncing Gore as a “famous fag pimp.” In 1998, Westboro picketed the funeral of Gore’s father, screaming vulgarities at Gore and telling him “your dad’s in Hell.”

So, “Gore delegate and Democrat fund-raiser” Fred Phelps turned out not to be such a Gore-lover after all, it seems. Once Gore came out in favor of gay rights, suddenly Gore was a “famous fag pimp” whose “dad’s in hell.”

That’s what Wikipedia has to say on the subject of Al Gore and Fred Phelps.

What about the number-two result of that Google search? It’s the Southern Poverty Law Center’s “Fred Phelps Timeline.”

1988
Phelps provides rooms for Democrat Al Gore’s presidential campaign workers. Though the Phelps-Gore connection will grow increasingly distant, Phelps’ oldest son, Fred Jr., is invited to the first Clinton-Gore inauguration in 1993.

By 1998, Gore will be seen as such an enemy by WBC that its members picket the funeral of Gore’s father.

So, the kindest word I can think of to describe Malkin and Preston’s little smear is “misleading.” To summarize:

1. Fred Phelps was not a “Gore delegate and Democrat fund-raiser.” That would be his son, Fred Phelps Jr.
2. When Al Gore said he did not consider homosexuality to be “an acceptable alternative,” Fred Phelps liked it and supported Al Gore. When Gore later changed his mind and began to support gay rights, Fred Phelps called him a “famous fag pimp” and sent his goons out to picket Gore’s father’s funeral.

It’s just a cheap smear, intended to make Malkin and Preston’s readers think that Fred Phelps is in bed with the mainstream Democratic Party, and is best buddies with Al Gore. The saddest part of all is that the cheap smear debunks itself. All you have to do is click on Malkin’s link and the truth is right there for you to read. How many of her readers will bother to do so?