I only had one encounter with Fred Phelps and the Westboro Baptist Church. It was, of course, at a funeral. The funeral, of course, was for a man in whom the Reverend Phelps discerned either a sympathy for—or simply an insufficient hatred of—homosexuals. And he, of course, managed to turn it into a scene, a mockery of the purpose for which it was intended.

The funeral in question took place eleven years ago, in downtown Pittsburgh. Phelps was still new to the national awareness. American soldiers had just begun dying in Iraq, and Phelps and his congregants had just begun the task of profaning their funerals. I still remember the sense of near panic their presence inspired, and most of all the confusion: Wait a second, I'm at the funeral of a beloved man, and there are people across the street protesting because "God hates fags," and he didn't…?

It didn't make any sense, so I crossed the street. I was not alone; there were the counter-protesters who became a regular part of Phelps' dismal theater of outrage, and they gathered in front of Westboro's picket line and confronted them. The police moved in, out of fear that the confrontation might escalate into the violence that Phelps apparently craved. (What I heard, even then, was that he made his living filing lawsuits against those he'd provoked into some kind of physical response.)

But there was no violence. There could be no violence, at this particular funeral, and all the counter-protesters did was sing the song indelibly associated with both the deceased and with American childhood—because the deceased was indelibly associated with American childhood. "It's a beautiful day in the neighborhood," they sang, and I had a chance to talk to some of the people from Westboro, and to observe their own American children.

I don't remember anything they said. What I do remember was how their children looked, and the keen and nearly overwhelming sense of loss the appearance of their children elicited. There were so many of them, for one thing; the Westboro congregation turned out to be a young one, and even some of the lank-haired women holding signs and spitting epithets turned out be, on closer inspection, teenagers. And they were all so poor. I'm not speaking simply of their clothes, and their teeth, and their grammar, or any of the other markers of class in America. I'm speaking of their poverty of spirit. Whether they were sixteen or six, they looked to be already exhausted, already depleted, with greasy hair, dirty faces, and circles under their eyes that had already hardened into purplish dents. They looked as if they were far from home, and didn't know where they were going next. They looked, in truth, not just poorly taken care of, but abused, if not physically then by a belief inimical to childhood—the belief that to be alive is to hate and be hated.

It was the condition of those children that was the true profanation of the funeral of Fred McFeely Rogers, in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, in 2003, and it is eerie symmetry that the day of Fred Phelps died is also the day Fred Rogers would have turned 86. I am tempted to call it karma, and to crow that such coincidence offers indisputable proof that in the mind of God, the good Fred wins. But hey, it's Mister Rogers' birthday, and so I can only do what he would do:

Pray that now, with the Minister of Hate gone, some poor soldier can finally get his rest, and some poor child get her sleep.

To read Tom Junod's legendary profile of Fred Rogers, click here.

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