This is a partial transcript from “Hannity & Colmes,” October 3, 2006, that has been edited for clarity.
ALAN COLMES, CO-HOST: Members of the Westboro Baptist Church of Topeka, Kansas, have been protesting at military funerals since June of last year carrying signs with anti-gay slogans. Yesterday, they announced they were planning to protest the funerals of the Amish schoolgirls shot to death to death in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, earlier this week, but they have since changed their plans.
With us now from Westboro Baptist Church is Shirley Phelps-Roper.
You changed your plans because Mike Gallagher has offered you airtime on his radio show, because you want to get your message out. What is that message?
SHIRLEY PHELPS-ROPER, WESTBORO BAPTIST CHURCH: The message is that God has put a standard in the earth. He expects his creatures to obey it. If you obey, he’ll bless you. If you don’t, he’ll curse you. America has sent away her day of grace. America is doomed.
COLMES: You’re giving me what sounds like a bunch of talking points. Why would you cause more pain to this community, the Amish community, which, if so not even involved in so much what is considered modern day and these families who have suffered? Do you have any sense of how much additional pain you would be causing these families by protesting at the funeral of these young girls?
PHELPS-ROPER: There isn’t any way to fix that situation for them. It’s not going to be any less painful if we are there or aren’t there. They did that to themselves. And you say they’re not involved.
COLMES: What do you mean they did that to themselves?
PHELPS-ROPER: I mean, they sit over to there and create their own form of righteousness, instead of…
COLMES: Did those girls deserve to be killed?
PHELPS-ROPER: Well, they did get killed, and they did that. Who controls the hearts of men? It was at the hand of an angry God those girls are dead.
COLMES: Did they deserve to die?
PHELPS-ROPER: They did deserve to die.
COLMES: How you can possibly make a statement like that?
PHELPS-ROPER: Because that’s exactly what happened, and it happened at the hand of the lord your God.
COLMES: How can you possibly say that — how can you possibly say that young girls who have done nothing wrong, who are innocent, who are just a few years old, who have never sinned, who have never done anything, deserve to die? How could you possibly make a statement like that?
PHELPS-ROPER: You told me that you serve the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob who says that when Adam sinned all sinned. There are no innocent human beings. And the parents…
COLMES: You know, you protest funerals of soldiers. You protest funerals of anybody who seems — dies under any circumstances. Anybody who is not a member of your church is a sinner and is hated by God.
PHELPS-ROPER: Don’t go to — anyone who is not — if you don’t serve God…
COLMES: Who serves God besides people in your church?
PHELPS-ROPER: Well, you tell me. I don’t see anyone on the landscape in America.
COLMES: Nobody except people in your church, which is basically your family. A few hundred members of your family are the only people on earth who serve God, and everybody else deserves to die?
PHELPS-ROPER: You need to get out on these streets and warn your neighbors that your sin is taking him to hell, fulfilling the royal law to love your neighbor as yourself.
SEAN HANNITY, CO-HOST: Shirley, you really are a sick woman. You are a sick.
PHELPS-ROPER: Slight cold but thank you.
HANNITY: Twisted human being. Where is your soul that you come on the air and as young innocent girls are going to die and you’re going to — you’re going to open up the family’s wound and pour salt on it? Where is your heart? Where is your soul? Where’s your compassion? Where’s your love?
PHELPS-ROPER: Our message is for the living, and that is the only loving thing to do.
HANNITY: What about the living families that lost their daughter?
PHELPS-ROPER: They did that to themselves.
HANNITY: No, because some animal killed them in cold blood. The families didn’t do it.
PHELPS-ROPER: Who controls the hearts of men?
HANNITY: Do you sin? Did you ever commit adultery? Did you ever sin?
PHELPS-ROPER: Of course not.
HANNITY: Did you ever lust in your heart? Did you ever get angry? Did you ever sin?
PHELPS-ROPER: And that — you’ve got the deck chairs on the Titanic.
HANNITY: Have you ever sinned, Miss Perfect here?
PHELPS-ROPER: Of course, you know that I have sinned, and that’s not the point.
HANNITY: You have. So you’re a sinner. When you die, would you deserve to die?
PHELPS-ROPER: Well, of course all of us deserve to die. But I’m not the one who did die and my message is for those living people who brought that pain upon themselves.
HANNITY: This is what I see about you, Shirley.
PHELPS-ROPER: They need to obey the commandments of the lord their God.
HANNITY: Your entire life is — is now sort of focused on bringing pain to other people: The families of innocent girls who died. The families of innocent soldiers who died. God hates fags, is what…
PHELPS-ROPER: Innocent? Throw that word around. It has no definition when you get done with it.
HANNITY: More innocent than you. They didn’t sin like you admit you sinned.
PHELPS-ROPER: Those children…
HANNITY: What did they do?
PHELPS-ROPER: … those children were killed at the hands of a raging mad God to punish those families, to punish the state of Pennsylvania, because you’ve got a governor in that state got on FOX News and lambasted us because we serve God.
HANNITY: And you want to do — and you want to…
PHELPS-ROPER: And then you’ve got those people in Pennsylvania who think they can sue us and fix this problem?
HANNITY: Because you — hang on a second. Because you didn’t like Ed Rendell and what he said, you’re now going to protest at the funerals to bring pains to the families?
PHELPS-ROPER: To connect the dots. To connect the dots from point A, your filthy manner of life and your rebellion against God…
HANNITY: What are your sins, Miss Perfect?
PHELPS-ROPER: … and conduct against the servants of God, to point B, the dead children.
HANNITY: I want to know what your sins are.
PHELPS-ROPER: I’m not going to talk to you about any such thing. I don’t glory in my shame like you seem to want to do.
HANNITY: No, I just find this amazing that everyone else is a big sinner but you, and you admit to being a sinner.
PHELPS-ROPER: Obey the commandments of the lord your God.
HANNITY: Which ones did you break?
PHELPS-ROPER: Obey the commandments of the lord your God. You don’t fix this by saying two wrongs make a right. That’s what you seem to be saying.
HANNITY: No, but…
PHELPS-ROPER: That you may not say what God requires of you. If you don’t, what?
HANNITY: You know what I’m saying? I’m speaking to our audience beyond you because you’re brain dead. What I’m saying to you is you are a soulless, thoughtless, mean…
PHELPS-ROPER: Thoughtless?
HANNITY: … mean, human being.
PHELPS-ROPER: Thoughtless? We go out here year after year after year on our own to warn this nation that if you obey God he’ll bless you. Why don’t you just try it?
HANNITY: Now listen very closely.
PHELPS-ROPER: Just try it.
HANNITY: Listen to what I’m saying.
PHELPS-ROPER: Just try it.
HANNITY: Here’s what I’m trying to tell you.
PHELPS-ROPER: Obey the commandments of the lord your God.
HANNITY: OK, I got that.
PHELPS-ROPER: And get his blessings.
HANNITY: Now you spoke.
PHELPS-ROPER: There is only one remedy.
HANNITY: Now you listen to me. Here’s what your remedy is.
PHELPS-ROPER: You repent like the men of Nineveh or you, this nation s doomed. You think it’s bad so far, you’re going to find bodies stacked up so that you can’t even bury them.
HANNITY: You — you are a religious nut.
PHELPS-ROPER: Then you will obey.
HANNITY: You are a religious…
COLMES: We’ve got to run. Do you deserve to die, too?
PHELPS-ROPER: All of us do. Every one of us.
COLMES: God is going to smite you at some point?
PHELPS-ROPER: No, I said we all deserve to die, but the mercy of God to his people that serve him is what prevails.
COLMES: I can’t even — I can’t even — we’ve got to take a break. I can’t get mad at you, because you’re so pathetic.
PHELPS-ROPER: Look, honey…
COLMES: And what you’re saying is so horrible and mean-spirited.
PHELPS-ROPER: You can do that and call me names. It doesn’t fix it. You have got the wrath of God pouring out on your head. You need to fix that by obeying.
COLMES: Thank you for the lecture.
PHELPS-ROPER: Repent like the men of Nineveh.
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