As a sentient citizen of the U.S., I am well aware of Westboro Baptist Church and the appalling, vicious hatred of its “ministry.” In this country that they scream God hates because of gay people, they are allowed, by law, to publicly propagate their twisted version of Christianity. That’s the price we pay for having the right of free speech. So, even though the very existence of these heinous people is abhorrent, we can’t shut them up. Or kill them. And that really annoys me. If I were inclined to be a card-carrying AAA (Armed Atheist Activist), this human cancer cluster would be my first — possibly only — target.

I came across this documentary today, The Most Hated Family in America, and it is infuriating. The matriarch of this family cult could be Ann Coulter’s missing fraternal twin — they don’t look alike, but in tone, attitude, ignorance, and density of hate, they are very much the same. Coulter’s only saving grace is that she isn’t breeding. Shirley Phelps-Roper has spawned eleven children whom she vigorously indoctrinates in fanatical dogma of irrational hatred.

I became an atheist based on rational thought. The disturbing and incredibly frustrating fact is that these people think they are being rational too. People like Shirley Phelps contradict themselves without any sense of the bizarre dichotomy of their own arguments. If someone is stunned into silence by the sheer absurdity of her hate-fueled “lines of reasoning” she thinks she’s won the debate. It never is a debate though. She and her herd, for all their smiling and smug self-assuredness, have no interest in hearing someone else’s point of view. There is no room in their minds for ideas that, deep down, they must know make real sense.