March 27, 2008

• My Heart Weeps (post rated PG-13)

    

  I am sure that many of you have heard of the recent tragedy that befell my home state, as well as a city very near the town where I grew up. Either Easter Sunday night or early Monday morning, Steven Sueppel killed his wife and four children in their home in Iowa City, Iowa. He has been recently charged for stealing thousands and thousands of dollars from the bank he worked at. Shortly after he killed his family with a baseball bat (though initial reports thought perhaps he had shot them), he called 911 to report an emergency at his home. Then he took the family van and drove out onto Interstate 80 for a short ways before intentionally driving into the support poles of a large sign over the highway.

  

  This is a huge tragedy, especially in a state where huge tragedies are rare, at least, it seems this way to me. I love Iowa; anyone who knows me also knows that I talk about Iowa and the area where I grew up all the time, and it is always full of love and longing to go back one day. Iowa is also the kind of state that, when something like this happens, everyone at least in that third of the state feels for those affected, and people who don’t knew each other come together and offer their support.

  Now, I wasn’t planning on blogging about this. But there was a turn in this sad tale, a turn for the wicked. Many people have heard enough in the news about the Westboro Baptist Church from Topeka, Kansas and their infamous protests of everything, their hate-filled messages targeting homosexuals, soldiers, and just about anyone. Believe it or not, they are going to protest at this funeral, too, because they believe there will be a large gathering (which there probably will, because we Iowans support one another) and lots of press (because this story got a great deal of it). They also issued the following statement regarding this whole incident. I will warn you now that there is some offensive language, and I apologize in advance if anyone takes offense:

  God’s Curse on America is Irreversible – because America has persecuted His People.

  Westboro Baptist Church .

  (WBC Chronicles – Since 1955)

  3701 SW 12th Topeka, Kansas 66604 785-273-0325 GodHatesFags.com

  Monday, March 24, 2008

  NEWS RELEASE

  Thank God for six people dead in suspicious circumstances (5 by “an active shooter”) in Iowa City, Iowa! God sent the shooter.

  In punishment for Iowa’s sins, and in retaliatory vengeance for Iowa having persecuted WBC. Dt.31:19. WBC to picket their funerals.

  Yes. WBC will picket their funerals in religious protest and warning; to wit: “Be not deceived; God is not mocked; for whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap.” Gal. 6:7. God Hates Fags! & Fag-Enablers. Ergo, God hates Iowa; and these 6 people died for Iowa’s sins. Furthermore, the evil State of Iowa has persecuted WBC for preaching the truth to Iowa, and has thereby “sown the wind, and is reaping the whirlwind.” Hos. 8:7. This message is to be preached in respectful, lawful proximity to their funerals – in full compliance with all laws. Beware of Iowa – Land of the Sodomite damned.

   

  ………….

  You can imagine how angry I want to feel right now.

  There is so much hate in that message, but I also imagine they use such language just to get a rise out of people. But not only were the Sueppel’s fellow Iowans, but I am pretty sure that they are my Catholic brothers and sisters, too, guessing by the fact that their funerals and burials will be at a Catholic church and Catholic cemetary. They are distant family, united to myself and over a billion Catholics worldwide through the same baptism. This whole thing is sad enough, but now a group of people have decided to use this tragedy as a soap box to spread their message that God hates. God hates? How could anything that God hated exist? Nothing can exist without God’s love, for everything that exists came into existance through it. If His love ceased, so to would whatever He ceased to love.

  This tragedy was the result of a man who had lost hope and fell deeply into the sin of murder, and it probably wasn’t a murder driven by hate but out of sorrow and despair for the future he had brought his dearest loved ones into through his crimes. If there is any hatred present in this crime, it was most likely the man’s hatred for himself and what he had done. I would say to the people of Westboro- let this hatred be enough. If God hated homosexual people or hated Iowa, both would cease to be. But, since neither has, you must accept the undeniable truth that God loves homosexuals and Iowa, and even yourselves, and Jesus died for homosexual people, and he died for Iowa, as much as he died for you. Instead of telling people and states that they are hated by God, why not tell people that God loves them, because I know for certain that more people think God hates them than believe that God loves them, and the world, especially in this time of tragedy in my beloved Iowa and God’s beloved world, must hear that God loves all of us, for IF THE WORLD BELIEVED THIS, SO MANY TRAGEDIES WOULD BE AVERTED ENTIRELY.

  But it is so much easier to hate. Jesus showed all of us what it is to truly love, and it didn’t sound easy, and he showed us that it wasn’t easy. We have only to look at Jesus upon the cross, though, to see how easy it is to hate. Jesus reminds us in John 15:18, though, “If the world hates you, realize that it hated me first.” Good people of Westboro, you needn’t crucify anyone; One Innocent Man was enough. If you were, instead, to come in a large mass of people and pray for the souls of the deceased and for the comfort of their families, THAT would make more headlines than any hate-filled words like gall mixed with the sweet wine of the Gospel being waved back and forth like the Roman standards two-thousand years ago.

  Please, all you Xangans, pray for Iowa, those affected by this tragedy, and especially pray for the Westboro Baptist Church. God bless you all.

  • 7:01 pm
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