Tuesday, January 29, 2008 | by nathan

I Have A New Goal

In general I could give a shit about celebrity gossip. It’s unavoidable, really, so occasionally I find things out, like that apparently that Britney Spears is having some problems. I get most of my dirt from Kathy Griffin, honestly.

So I didn’t really have anything to say about Heath Ledger’s death. He was talented, I suppose, and it’s always sad when someone dies that young, especially when he has a child.

But I immediately got fascinated by the Heath Ledger thing when I heard the Westboro Baptist Church - who have recently redesigned their website, btw* - is going to Australia to picket his funeral.

In general I feel the way about the Westboro people that I do about celebrity gossip: if we’d just ignore it, it would go away. I don’t really feel the need to strap on a set of giant angel wings to go block out their message, because I really don’t fear that anyone is going to take them seriously. Like Britney they do a pretty wonderful job of satirizing themselves; they don’t need my snark to help them to look foolish, and frankly, my snark is better spent on Bush.**

But when I heard that they were protesting his funeral because he’d starred in Brokeback Mountain, I about plotzed. Again - not going to waste snark on it, but I will just say that I’ve listened to this interview with Shirley Phelps-Roper three times, and it just gets funnier every time I hear it. I just hope that when it’s my time to shuffle off the mortal coil and go dance disco and pass out cookies with Jesus in heaven, that WBC sees fit to come tell all the world that I’m rotting away in hell. I may actually want to be buried - or, rather, have my ashes scattered - from a handbasket instead of an urn.

In fact, once I’m gone, could you guys see your way to hooking that up? It would seriously make my day…. er, death.

* Yep, I’m linking to the God Hates Fags site, because I want them to know that I’m gunning for them.

** We’ll get to the State of the Union address later, don’t worry.