It was many years ago, perhaps as many ago as 15 or more. It was before my Aunt took the hormones and underwent top surgery to become a man, that's how long ago it was, so long ago she was still calling herself a "lesbian." It was Pride Day in Lawrence, Kan., and they marched and did their thing and then they all returned home, and my Grandma Bonk, she cornered my Uncle by the icebox and told him that the preacher man who was leading a protest against the marching homosexuals was mean.

How was he mean, Mom, asked my Uncle.

"He called me a 'buttfucker,'" said Grandma Bonk, placing her hand to her mouth as an amplifier and whispering the word loudly, as if to spare anyone else from hearing her utter the swear.

That's right, and this actually happened. It is one of the greatest stories to come out of my family. Fred Phelps of the Westboro Baptist Church, Topeka, Kan., allegedly looked my Grandma in the eye and called her a buttfucker.

Ain't. Karma. A Bitch.

A very wise, very enlightened jury Wednesday delivered a $2.9 million verdict against Phelps' for picketing the funeral of a Maryland Marine. Picketing soldiers' funerals is a common practice for this "church." They believe that the soldiers' deaths are punishment against the United States for its tolerance of homosexuality.

I am not so vain to believe that the full weight of this award has been instant karma's way of vindicating the honor of my Grandma Bonk. But I do think we're entitled credit for a few thousand of it. If you can look an old woman in the eye and tell her sheâ€™s a buttfucker, then friend, you donâ€™t need the Lord. You need Prozac.

One would think that the Phelps' beliefs are on the fringe, that these people are radical nutbars who shouldn't be taken seriously. That is, until you recall what the formerly alive national religious leader Jerry Falwell had to say following the attacks of September 2001: "I really believe that the pagans, and the abortionists, and the feminists, and the gays and the lesbians who are actively trying to make that an alternative lifestyle, the ACLU, People For the American Way, all of them who have tried to secularize America. I point the finger in their face and say â€˜you helped this happen.'" This is the man who founded Liberty University, which today churns out the superstitious idiots who are running our government. Falwell was, I would argue, one of the most powerful, central religious leaders in this nation, a man who made presidents and shaped one of the most powerful, successful political alliances in modern U.S. history, and he actually believed that a supernatural being who resides somewhere in the clouds actually cares with whom you are kertanging, to the point that he waved his magic wand and sent four airbuses to attack vital targets in the Untied States of America and to kill more than 3,000 people.

I take some solace in this beautiful tort result, to think that the Phelps family will actually have to pay restitution for their asshole antics, it is, truly, beautiful. But it is difficult to come to terms with how much farther we will have to retreat from the dark, murky caves into which these superstitious nutbars have yanked us and led us. It is not the "fags" creating the spiritual crisis in America. It is the rabid, crucifix-toting "faithful" who cannot evolve past this towel-flicking, frat-boy notion of human sexuality and "In Search Of" naivetÃ© regarding spirituality and God. I pray that this is not the last lawsuit these idiots face. I pray they have to sell whatever assets the church possesses. I hope they are ruined.

After all. They did call my Grandma a "buttfucker."

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http://www.adventuresintothewellknown.com

