Pathetic

Heavy metal front man Ronnie James Dio, former lead singer for Black Sabbath, Dio and a slew of other bands died last week at age 67.  There will be a public memorial on May 30th in Los Angeles for his fans, but they can expect some undesirables there as well, because plans are already underway for an organized protest of the event.  What kind of assholes would be tacky enough to picket a memorial service?  The members of the Westboro Baptist Church, that's who.   The church, which describes itself as "independent" is really just a cult run by 80-year old Fred Phelps has been monitored as a "hate group" by the Anti-Defamation League. To give you an idea of what kind of people these are; one need only look at their official website, which can be found at www.godhatesfags.com.   I'm not kidding, that really is their website.  These ass clowns, who are well known in the United States for picketing funerals of known homosexuals and telling their next of kin that their loved one is en route to hell, plan to hit the Ronnie James Dio memorial "to remind you who worship that old serpent, Satan, that your time is very short."  To reiterate, Dio passed away at age 67, not that far below that average life expectancy for an American male and well above the average life expectancy for an American male who fronts a heavy metal band. 

They are targeting Dio and his fans because they, like the parents in the movie Footloose, see a link between music and devil worship.  Dio's greatest legacy may well have nothing to do with the music he made and instead could be his invention of the "Devil Horn" hand signal which now is as much a part of heavy metal as long hair, leather and the double bass.  On their website, under the "picket" section (which is huge and lists all sorts of crazy shit they plan to picket for a slew of absurd, grammatically incorrect reasons), they explain why they want to disrupt the memorial service by listing his "admitted sins": "1) He hates his neighbors starting with Ozzy Osbourne (Note: Doesn't the Westboro Baptist Church also hate Ozzy?) 2) He hates God.  Pay special attention to the face that he change his original sir name for Padanova to Dio, which means "God" in Italian 3) Ronnie the simpleton enabled, and encouraged Sorceries."   Huh?   What are these lunatics talking about?    Even sadder then the fact that these douchebag cultists are going to disrupt the memorial service is the fact that "in honor" of his death, they've created a "parody" song called "You're Going Straight To Hell On A Crazy Train" that you can download on their website.  The fact that they are parodying an Ozzy Osbourne song that has nothing to do with Ronnie James Dio in any way seems to fit perfectly with the intelligence level you'd expect from these people.  Truly pathetic.