I suppose I should begin by identifying the people/entities in question. If you do not know who they are and what they are like, nothing that follows will be quite as meaningful or entertaining as it should. The Westboro Baptist Church of Topeka, Kansas, was founded in 1955 by Fred Phelps Sr. And while most churches become known for things like sending missionaries around the world to preach the Gospel, feeding the hungry and teaching people what the Bible says, from roughly the 1990s onward, they became known for edgy and provocative public protests.
They sometimes hold up signs saying “God hates (filthy word for homosexuals).” They have protested the funerals of soldiers killed in Iraq. They have protested at the funerals of school shooting victims, including the Sandy Hook shooting. After the West Nickel Mines School shooting of 2006, in which five Amish schoolgirls were killed, the church announced plans to protest their funerals. Radio talk-show host Mike Gallagher got them not to do so by offering them an hour of uninterrupted time on his radio talk show in exchange for not doing so.
Nate Bargatze is a comedian. A hilarious comedian. So is Westboro planning on protesting him because of a foul mouth or anti-God jokes? Quite the contrary. Bargatze, born and raised in Nashville, is the rarest and most enjoyable of things: a truly clean comedian who is still absolutely, hysterically funny. Check out his George Washington skit on “Saturday Night Live.” You will not be disappointed.
So why are they protesting him? *Ahem.* Precisely because he is a clean comedian. I know, I know, that doesn’t make any sense, but sense is sometimes too much to ask. In announcing their decision to protest at his shows at the T-Mobile Center in Kansas City, Missouri, church members stated they are doing so, among other reasons, because he is a funny guy and because he uses clean language and because he has just one wife (yet mocks her regularly) and because he mocks sin and because he uses the talent God gave him to serve himself and owes God a return on his investment.
Tylenol … and Ibuprofen. Where are my headache meds?