God hates Albany, and we’re all going to hell

Yep, everybody’s favorite too-homophobic-to-be-true church is coming to town:

The city school district is preparing for demonstrations by members of a Kansas church protesting the Albany High School performance of “The Laramie Project.”

Westboro Baptist Church members are expected to be at the high school Friday, Nov. 20, before the second performance of the play. The church is led by Fred Phelps, who says homosexuality is to blame for the deaths of soldiers in the war on terror.

Albany students say they were inspired to perform the play, about the life of a college student beaten to death because he was gay, by the church’s protest in Albany last year.

Phelps wasn’t at the protests eight months ago, but members of his Westboro Baptist Church stood outside the school. Five held “God hates fags” signs. They stomped on an American flag. They chanted about dead babies and how America’s lapsed morality was causing the deaths of its soldiers.

Am I the only person who thinks that Fred Phelps is some sort of FBI agent provocateur who’s being paid to make Christians look bad? Westboro’s entire gestalt hews too closely to the stereotypes that insular, atheist, left-wing blue state SWPLs have of God-fearing heartlanders to be believable. Anyone else think Phelps will end up being unmasked as the Hal Turner of American Christianity?