FRED PHELPS: NOT METAL
May. 23rd, 2010 11:32 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
defrogI’m back from Hainan. What’d I miss?
ITEM [via![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
dr_p_venkman ]: The Westboro Baptist Church has put Ronnie James Dio’s funeral on its “to do” list.
Ah.
I confess, I wasn’t expecting this, if only because the WBC usually sticks to gays and soldiers, and Dio was neither. Yes, people like WBC are naturally going to have negative opinions on metal in general, but it’s been low on their priority list compared to, you know, teh gayz and teh jooz. Still, metal gods don’t die every day, so I guess you’d be foolish to pass up a golden opportunity to protest someone with that high a profile.
That said, protesting a “celebrity” funeral means they’ll have to contend with a couple of new and challenging elements:
1. Professional security
2. Metal fans.
I’m almost looking forward to the results, though I doubt there’ll be any. The WBC said they’d protest Michael Jackson’s funeral too, and as far as I know it never happened, probably due to the security element. Or maybe it did and the news media collectively couldn’t justify giving them so much as a soundbite’s worth of airtime – which is really what the WBC wants anyway.
I probably shouldn’t be calling attention to them myself. It’s just that ... well, denouncing heavy metal as Satan Rock is so 80s.
As Dee Snider can tell you.
Granted, back in the 80s you could actually get liberals and senators (or at least their spouses) to fight The Metal. Nowadays, it seems limited to the usual batshit fundamentalists.
Progress!
In a metal mood,
This is dF
ITEM [via
dr_p_venkman ]: The Westboro Baptist Church has put Ronnie James Dio’s funeral on its “to do” list.Ah.
I confess, I wasn’t expecting this, if only because the WBC usually sticks to gays and soldiers, and Dio was neither. Yes, people like WBC are naturally going to have negative opinions on metal in general, but it’s been low on their priority list compared to, you know, teh gayz and teh jooz. Still, metal gods don’t die every day, so I guess you’d be foolish to pass up a golden opportunity to protest someone with that high a profile.
That said, protesting a “celebrity” funeral means they’ll have to contend with a couple of new and challenging elements:
1. Professional security
2. Metal fans.
I’m almost looking forward to the results, though I doubt there’ll be any. The WBC said they’d protest Michael Jackson’s funeral too, and as far as I know it never happened, probably due to the security element. Or maybe it did and the news media collectively couldn’t justify giving them so much as a soundbite’s worth of airtime – which is really what the WBC wants anyway.
I probably shouldn’t be calling attention to them myself. It’s just that ... well, denouncing heavy metal as Satan Rock is so 80s.
As Dee Snider can tell you.
Granted, back in the 80s you could actually get liberals and senators (or at least their spouses) to fight The Metal. Nowadays, it seems limited to the usual batshit fundamentalists.
Progress!
In a metal mood,
This is dF
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no subject
on 2010-05-23 08:33 am (UTC)It has been more than a decade since metal caused a bit of put-on religious hysteria like this, I guess it was about time.
Still... the last time it was the Norwegian black metal kids burning churches and murdering people. If that didn't provoke people into the streets with pitchforks and torches it's hard to see how the death of the five-foot-tall D&D nerd who did the vocals on "Love is All" for the Butterfly Ball (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6sn1UqbbbqQ&feature=player_embedded) is going to do the same.
I like to think Dio is laughing at this bluster, while dining upon the flesh of young virgins.
-- JF