And the Lord Did Smite Them with Fallacies.

Quote:  "You turn this nation over to the fags and our soldiers come home in body bags." Shirley Phelps-Roper.

Figure of Speech:  post hoc ergo propter hoc, the Chanticleer Fallacy.

The Allegedly Reverend Fred Phelps leads his Baptist flock from Topeka, Kansas, on "love crusades" to funerals of soldiers killed in Iraq.  They carry signs claiming the deaths are God's punishment for tolerating gays.  None of the dead soldiers were gay; but God, unlike Phelps, apparently doesn't discriminate.

His daughter Shirley's jingling quote sums up the church's big fat logical fallacy, post hoc ergo propter hoc (after this, therefore because of this).  A happened after B.  Therefore A caused B.

I call it the Chanticleer Fallacy, after the rooster who thought his crowing made the sun come up.

Snappy Answer:  "Are you calling Congress and the President of the United States fags?"

Comments

[Nate Straight]

As a member of a true Baptist church, I think it's sort of my responsibility to point out that the wack-jobs over at Westboro "Baptist" Church are not members, individually or corporately, of any recognized Baptist organization or affiliation. They only claim the title "Baptist" because the church that Fred Phelps used to be a member of (also the church that kicked him out of membership and communion because of his inanity) was Baptist.

[Simon the Pedant]

There seems to be a mistake in this article. The fallacy is given as "A happened after B. Therefore A caused B." Surely the latter part should read, "Therefore B caused A"?

If, for example, A is the rising sun and B is the crowing rooster, then it is fallacious to argue that B caused A, not that B caused A.

Please amend the article and then feel free to delete this comment. Glad to be of service.