From the Irish Independent...
A CONTROVERSIAL US Church has attacked a noted Irish poet and branded Ireland a "land of sodomite dandies".
Kildare-based poet Desmond Egan's poem 'Understanding God Too Quickly in Topeka' ridicules the Kansas Church, which encourages members to 'celebrate' deaths of US soldiers in Iraq.
The poem drew the ire of Westboro Baptist Church's leader, Fred Phelps (76), as it accuses the Church, based in Topeka, Kansas, of having a 'flea philosophy'.
A bid is under way in the US to ban the Church from picketing the funerals of soldiers in the US, using anti-homosexual banners. It holds its protests because it believes US troops died defending 'homosexual nations' - Afghanistan and Iraq. The Church is notorious for running a website, godhatesfags.com, outlining beliefs that nearly every human tragedy is linked to homosexuality.
Preacher Phelps this week told the Irish Independent he still had his eye on Mr Egan, who wrote some "mean stuff" about his Church. "The Bible says that the only thing worse than a fag is a fag enabler," he claimed. "He is pushing the fag agenda in his poems and he is on his way to hell."
Mr Phelps accused Mr Egan, who is married with children, of being "a fag in denial". However, "to be fair" to Mr Egan, a winner of the American National Poetry Foundation Award, he was not the only one.
"Ireland is a land of sodomite dandies since it joined the EU, although it is not quite as bad as Sweden yet," he said.
Mr Egan said: "They have posters that say things like 'God laughs when a gay dies'. It's really awful stuff."
Tom Lyons
A CONTROVERSIAL US Church has attacked a noted Irish poet and branded Ireland a "land of sodomite dandies".
Kildare-based poet Desmond Egan's poem 'Understanding God Too Quickly in Topeka' ridicules the Kansas Church, which encourages members to 'celebrate' deaths of US soldiers in Iraq.
The poem drew the ire of Westboro Baptist Church's leader, Fred Phelps (76), as it accuses the Church, based in Topeka, Kansas, of having a 'flea philosophy'.
A bid is under way in the US to ban the Church from picketing the funerals of soldiers in the US, using anti-homosexual banners. It holds its protests because it believes US troops died defending 'homosexual nations' - Afghanistan and Iraq. The Church is notorious for running a website, godhatesfags.com, outlining beliefs that nearly every human tragedy is linked to homosexuality.
Preacher Phelps this week told the Irish Independent he still had his eye on Mr Egan, who wrote some "mean stuff" about his Church. "The Bible says that the only thing worse than a fag is a fag enabler," he claimed. "He is pushing the fag agenda in his poems and he is on his way to hell."
Mr Phelps accused Mr Egan, who is married with children, of being "a fag in denial". However, "to be fair" to Mr Egan, a winner of the American National Poetry Foundation Award, he was not the only one.
"Ireland is a land of sodomite dandies since it joined the EU, although it is not quite as bad as Sweden yet," he said.
Mr Egan said: "They have posters that say things like 'God laughs when a gay dies'. It's really awful stuff."
Tom Lyons