Satanists: Westboro Baptist founder's deceased mom now gay after Miss. gravesite ritual
The church, based out of Topeka, Kan.,has made a name for itself since the early 1990s with bombastic rhetoric against the gay community, controversial protests of funerals, and more recently, an appearance at Ole Miss for the idolization of The Blind Side's Michael Oher.
The New York-based Satanic Temple, an organization with a goal to support "freedom and the pursuit of happiness for all people," took its own stance against the Westboro Baptist Church this weekend by coming to Mississippi.
The temple performed a "Pink Mass" ceremony Sunday at the Meridian grave of Phelps' mother Catherine Johnston to turn her "gay forever."
"We believe that Fred Phelps is obligated to believe that his mother is now gay in the afterlife," Temple spokesman Lucien Greaves said in a release. "Further, if beliefs are inviolable rights, nobody has the right to challenge our right to believe that Fred Phelps believes that his mother is now gay."
Greaves said the idea for the Pink Mass came during the aftermath of the Boston Marathon bombings when the WBC threatened to protest the funeral of bombing victims.
"Members of The Satanic Temple were in Boston, waiting for them, but they failed to show. Later, the WBC issued a statement that they had been present 'in spirit'. We decided that a same-sex couple celebrating ceremony at the grave-site of Fred Phelps's mother was an appropriate way to meet the Westboro Baptists, 'in spirit', but this time on our terms."
The Pink Mass ceremony is based on the Mormon practice of baptizing people after their death. The ceremony was performed twice on Sunday. Once with two women kissing over her grave and again with two men. The same-sexed couples expressed their love at the gravesite of Fred Phelps, Jr.’s mother before a high priest of the Satanic Temple, who recited an incantation.
The group claims that after a Pink Mass has been performed, every time a same sex couple kisses over a gravesite, the now-gay deceased is pleasured in the afterlife.
Greaves told Vice that Phelps and the WBC have no choice but to make his own mother's grave the site of one of their protests. He also said the group planned to perform the same ceremony on Phelps' father and great-aunt "each time they picket funerals or applaud horrific terrorist actions, as they are known to do."
The Satanic Temple, founded in 2012, first made headlines in January when they rallied in support of Florida Gov. Rick Scott after he signed a bill to support religious diversity.
As for the Westboro Baptist Church, a spokesperson for their congregation announced plans to picket the funeral of Glee star Cory Monteith, who died Saturday of a drug overdose.
The Satanic Temple is hoping their recent action will draw attention to the organization’s efforts to raise funds so that they may participate in the New York City Department of Transportation’s Adopt-a-Highway program.
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