Yep, the so-called Reverend Fred Phelp’s crew (I don’t think the man himself braved the cold) was there in all their venom spewing splendor. There to protest another Iraq war soldier’s funeral.

When I pulled up to the stop light in front of the funeral home I could hear them from across the wide road, singing their bastardized version of God Bless America, it’s the one where they sing “except fags” all kinds of other epithets. I remembered the documentary about Phelps from a few months ago where the bikers would rev their engines to drown out Phelp’s crews singing and chanting. 
It occurred to me, there were no bikers.

The Phelpsians we’re just too loud for my tastes. Then I remembered a couple of immutable truths I learned from ten+ years of touring in a rock band: (1) music can save a life and salve a soul and (2) the power of wattage is louder than any heckler.

So, I drove past and came back to a stop in front of the Phelpsians, still chanting their brand of hate, still too audible. There I was stopped just six feet from them, between them and the funeral home, and something WIERD happend to my car; all the windows rolled down, the stero turned up as loud as possible, and Minor Threat’s 1983 album Out of Step was BLARRING from my car. I couldn’t figure out what was going on, so I just turned on my hazard lights and waved people past me.