Westboro Baptist Church Protests Turnpike Troubadours, Jason Isbell
Congratulations are in order for Oklahoma’s Turnpike Troubadours, and Alabama’s Jason Isbell. Both have received major accolades in their careers by making broadcast television debuts, debuting on the Grand Ole Opry, selling out the Ryman Auditorium, and headlining major festivals. Now they can add being protested by the Westboro Baptist Church to their list of accomplishments.
The Turnpike Troubadours played the Azura Ampiteater in Bonner Springs, Kansas Friday night (August 16th) with Jason Isbell opening, and the notorious Westboro Baptist Church put out the word to protest the event through an official press release. The controversial church is notorious for their shameless protests of celebrities and even things such as the funerals of dead American soldiers.
Apparently it’s Jason Isbell that the Westboro folks really have the problem with, with the Turnpike Troubadours being inadvertent beneficiaries. The church’s official press release reads,
“WBC [Westboro Baptist Church] must warn our neighbors that Jason Isbell is a dangerous and confused individual to follow!”
Okay, I know some otherwise reasonable folks who may agree with that statement about Isbell’s social media profiles. The dude can get rowdy and go after his own fans pretty hard in a way that’s probably counter-productive to his ideology.
But then they go into how Isbell has had “as many wives as he has musical instruments that he can play,” (probably not true), how his grandfather was a Pentecostal preacher and Isbell attended a Church of Christ, but then say he adopted “the art of fag speak:”
The Westboro cites a nine-year-old article where Isbell has the audacity to say, “We have real problems in this country that we should be channeling our energy into, rather than who can get married and who can smoke pot, that’s stupid shit man, I’m so tired of non-issues.”
Jason Isbell and the Turnpike Troubadours are not alone. Westboro Baptist Church is also planning to protest Zach Bryan’s show at the T-Mobile Center in Kansas City on Tuesday, August 20th for Bryan saying on X/Twitter that he wants to live in a country “where we can all just be who we want to be” and how it’s “a great time to be alive.”
I know. The horror.
Then Westboro will be going after Dierks Bentley on August 23rd, who is performing at the Starlight Theatre. Apparently they’re really miffed about Bentley’s promotion of “Elf on a Shelf.”
“Not only does he not promote the truth of the Living God, he laughs and brags about getting drunk on one recent Christmas Eve, such that he failed to do something he was supposed to do with the Elf on the Shelf, to perpetuate that lie in the eyes of his children.”
Do these guys know how to party or what?
August 17, 2024 @ 7:55 am
A lot to unpack here.
August 17, 2024 @ 8:17 am
That level of self unawareness is shocking.
August 17, 2024 @ 8:29 am
These are the same people that protested at Billy Graham’s final crusade in NYC in 2005… Billy Graham, seriously? They are the PETA of the religious world; it’s best to just ignore them and pray for them.
August 17, 2024 @ 8:37 am
Looking at their schedule, they were also planning to protest numerous seminary conferences in Kansas City, football games, etc. So they’ll go after anyone. Basically, if you’re not for them, you’re against them, and are open season.
August 18, 2024 @ 4:37 am
Not us, hon … Jesus Christ. If you’re not 100% with Christ, you’re against Him. He said that Himself 😍😎
“He that is not with me is against me; and he that gathereth not with me scattereth abroad.” Matt.12:30
So, accusing us of saying (believing) the exact standard that Christ set … well, that’s just spectacular and causes us to praise Him for showing us faithful 😁
August 19, 2024 @ 2:18 am
You may believe your intentions are good but you’re not spreading the love of God in any way you are spreading hate. Just the name of your website is nothing but hate and lies. God doesn’t hate f@gs, he hates the sin of homosexuality but not the sinner. Nobody is going to come to know Jesus by what you’re doing. I know it won’t help change your mind any but I felt compelled to say this to you. Maybe God will open your eyes and show you the error in your ways.
August 19, 2024 @ 9:19 am
Lord, I pray for the Phelps family and all the members of Westboro. Show them your grace, mercy, and love in the coming days, and open their eyes and hearts to your forgiveness through the blood of Jesus Christ. May they grow to be a beacon of hope and change through the correct application of your Word and the transformative nature of the Gospel. Bless them and encourage them, in Jesus’ name, amen.
August 22, 2024 @ 8:06 am
How long till y’all move to Guyana and drink the Kool-Aid?
August 22, 2024 @ 11:28 am
@Timothy Phelps
3 Why do you see the speck that is in your brother’s eye, but do not notice the log that is in your own eye? 4 Or how can you say to your brother, ‘Let me take the speck out of your eye,’ when there is the log in your own eye? 5 You hypocrite, first take the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take the speck out of your brother’s eye.
(Matthew 7:3-5)
October 6, 2024 @ 7:36 am
Of course, the use of this passage from Matthew 7 is a clever way to avoid responsibility. The argument goes “since I’m a sinner, I cannot speak about the sins of others”. Setting aside the rank deceit in such a position, it is not what the passage directs.
What is ordered here is that you must BEGIN with maintaining your own battle against your sinful nature WHILE peacefully warning your neighbor against sinning. The duty to warn against sin is every bit as much identified in Scripture as striving against your own sin.
More importantly, there is no resistance against sin among this group. They bathe in it with swelling pride. That you would insist on clearing the path for them to continue … by attacking anyone who would warn against it … makes you complicit and (by Scriptural definition) makes you a chief hater of those humans’ souls (Leviticus 19:17-18).
August 17, 2024 @ 2:59 pm
That advice is perfect. I will pray for them. They need it so much! And they are yet another example of the absolute opposite of what Christianity is.
August 17, 2024 @ 3:58 pm
They and PETA are complete farces.
August 17, 2024 @ 8:31 am
I’d join them over that last Turnpike album. Kidding.
August 17, 2024 @ 8:39 am
https://youtu.be/gO-WFoXDSfE?si=ebkh9KERMWzNlW9U
Westboro Waltz by Grandpa’s Cough Medicine
August 17, 2024 @ 2:03 pm
I immediately thought of that as well. That was a really fun band and saw them numerous times when I lived in Jax. Speaking of live music, about to head out to Bela’s banjo concert. The weather doesn’t look like it’s going to cooperate unfortunately.
August 17, 2024 @ 9:12 am
Being a member of that church sounds exhausting
August 20, 2024 @ 12:26 pm
A casual google search says they have fewer than 100 members.
August 17, 2024 @ 10:16 am
When I was a kid my next door neighbor was killed in Iraq and the Westboro Baptist Church planned to do a demonstration at his funeral. So dozens of the men in town (including my father) signed a letter that was published in the newspaper saying that if they did show up they’d regret it for the rest of their lives (I’m paraphrasing). They never showed
August 17, 2024 @ 11:16 am
They tried to do the same thing when I lived in Chattanooga about 20 years ago. The word got out that WB was flying in to make a scene at a soldier’s funeral. But they didn’t make it to the cemetery because no taxi would take them, so they spent the day at the airport before going back to where they came from.
August 17, 2024 @ 12:35 pm
My uncle is involved in a group called Patriot Guard Riders that shows up (when invited) on their motorcycles to soldiers’ funerals to block any protestors. I think they formed mostly to counteract these Westboro nuts.
August 17, 2024 @ 6:28 pm
About 40 Patriot guards showed up to my neighbors funeral, each one holding an American flag. To my knowledge the whole town fed them and they drank for free at the bar that day
August 17, 2024 @ 10:50 am
I Can Lick Any Sonofabitch in the House, in addition to having an all-time great band name, have a great tune called “Westboro Baptist Church.” The chorus is “Fuck Fred Phelps and the Westboro Baptist Church.” Great tune in addition to being hilarious.
August 17, 2024 @ 12:20 pm
I will check that out!
August 17, 2024 @ 7:51 pm
I love that song and ICLASOBH! 😀
August 18, 2024 @ 6:17 am
Great Band, and unfortunately mostly unknown. Most like because of their name, as good as it is. Singer Michael Dean Damron also released some great albums under his own name, but I don’t think either have released anything in around 10 years.
August 17, 2024 @ 10:52 am
Who has shown up to protest an artist is less important to me than the quality of the music I’ve come to see.
August 17, 2024 @ 11:01 am
Kind of hilarious. But i dont really see their protest any differently than i see others. Everyone has their points of view. Whoever has the biggest numbers is usually counted as the winner regardless of the truth. I guess the worst thing they do is protesting funerals for service members but people do what they do.
August 17, 2024 @ 12:04 pm
They absolutely have a right to protest and share their views. No denying that.
They are also an absolutely abhorrent organization, run by (somehow) worse human beings.
August 17, 2024 @ 12:04 pm
Dierks is playing the T-Mobile center on Fri, not starlight
And this is not a big deal at all. They protest everything, was at our kids high school graduation
August 17, 2024 @ 12:11 pm
Well don’t tell Westboro that. Their press release most definitely says Starlight Theatre, though the PDF link says T-Mobile. We probably shouldn’t be surprised this isn’t exactly the tightest ship.
https://www.godhatesfags.com/newsreleases/20240814_Dierks-Bentley-T-Mobile-KCMO.pdf
August 17, 2024 @ 12:32 pm
So sad that these bozos have nothing more productive to do with their lives than to hate on people who’ve never done anything to them. The country seems sadly full of such misfits and losers these days.
August 17, 2024 @ 12:41 pm
“We have real problems in this country …”
The rub is who gets to decide what the “real problems” are. If you claim that only one side gets to, you are part of the problem. I am an older person so I remember a far superior era where both sides agreed on the problems but offered different ways to solve them. But the quickest way to get me to tune out and keep walking is someone telling me that what I care about and believe in doesn’t matter – or shouldn’t be addressed in the political sphere – but treats all the things that he cares about and believes in as matters of utmost urgency. Disagreeing with people is fine. But to dismiss what that person cares about is the same as dismissing the person himself.
Yes, conservatives do it too. For decades their thing was forget racism, poverty, underfunded schools and police brutality and focus on a set of “real issues” that they themselves defined, plus had no desire to lift a finger to do anything about those “real issues.”
Isbell and the Westboro folk deserve each other.
August 19, 2024 @ 5:35 am
Equating Isbell with what Westboro does is…a choice, I guess.
August 19, 2024 @ 8:01 pm
“Isbell and the Westboro folk deserve each other.”
…seriously?
August 17, 2024 @ 12:43 pm
Remember when they protested a Vince Gill concert and made some unfavorable comments about Amy Grant? Vince went right out there to the parking lot and confronted them face to face.
August 17, 2024 @ 12:45 pm
Yes, looks like the video has been removed, but I wrote a report about it back then:
https://savingcountrymusic.com/vince-gill-owns-westboro-baptist-church-protesters/
August 17, 2024 @ 7:31 pm
I found another link to the Vince Gill-WBC video on youtube.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZfodnpXrimY
Reminds me of the Cal Smith Song, “The Lord Knows I’m Drinking.”
Now that I think back, the first time I heard of Westboro Baptist Church, they were showing up outside military funerals and haranguing guest and the families othe deceased with signs and chants “God hates f_gs”–because the U.S. Military had lifted its ban on gays from serving. It might have still been in the “Don’t ask/Don’t tell” days.
Th “protests” against Vince Gill and Jason Isbell are actually rational, in comparison.
August 17, 2024 @ 1:01 pm
This is false equivalency. I have no strong opinion about Isbell beyond a passing sense that he’s an overrated songwriter, but I also have no reason to believe he’s a hater in the Fred Phelps mold. Maybe Isbell doesn’t get criticized for being a bigot — failing to be a conservative doesn’t qualify — because he isn’t one. If individuals are judged equivalent simply because they take issue with an extremist who seems bent on doing (or at least encouraging) genuine harm to others, then we may as well give up on the quaint notion that free expression serves some positive end. Simply by engaging in it, I take it, we make ourselves guilty of what we’re condemning.
August 17, 2024 @ 12:46 pm
I’d take being protested against by them as the ultimate badge of honor and proving you’re culturally relevant. =)
August 17, 2024 @ 12:53 pm
It’s my opinion this families motto is not really helpful. How they choose to go about expending their energy does little to push Christ or His Kingdom forward. If they are in Christ it is a serious waste of stewardship of time and energy. One can be right and be off or wrong with how they go about conveying truth.
I know this is relatable to country music, but it seems like picking low hanging fruit to highlight this fringe family.
August 17, 2024 @ 1:00 pm
I don’t think most people consider Westboro in the same vein as 90% of Christians, and I think 90% of Christians see them as fringe and unhelpful to the cause. This really isn’t really even a religious thing as much as a cult using a severe interpretation of Christian doctrine.
August 17, 2024 @ 1:14 pm
Agreed.
August 17, 2024 @ 3:56 pm
You will be surprised. Plenty of militant atheists so.
August 17, 2024 @ 7:22 pm
All sexuality outside the construct of a biological male and biological woman in the covenant of marriage is sinful. And I am militant in spreading the Gospel. But the Lord saves one soul at a time. What this group is doing and the way they are doing it is not upright. The Apostle Paul never spread the good news with slurs trying to hurt. He reasoned with who the Lord put before him. Again it’s my opinion that this groups time could be better stewarded to move the Kingdom forward.
August 19, 2024 @ 2:01 pm
Amen and well said FLETCH
August 17, 2024 @ 4:02 pm
I agree with that, Trigger. All the same, however, enough people, either in their part of America or even other parts of it, agree with their insane views; and this is their extremist form of Gaslighting people. The attention is the only reason they are doing this, because clearly they don’t give a flying fuck about anyone else’s problems, just Their Own.
August 18, 2024 @ 4:47 pm
Westboro’s doctrine is Biblically sound. Men using other men’s digestive tracts as a semen depository is depraved and abhorred by God. To deny that is to deny basic, entry-level Christian doctrine and eternal truth.
It’s Westboro’s tactics that are not Biblical or useful. Preaching in public is Biblical and useful. Protesting funerals doesn’t strike me as useful and we don’t see it in scripture.
August 18, 2024 @ 10:57 pm
There used to be a mayor Joe Johnson of Eufaula, Ok who relocated to Austin, Tx. Johnson, like another eastern Oklahoma politician named Walt who also relocated to Austin, liked to do the tube steak boogie.
I wonder if you are him.
August 20, 2024 @ 12:43 am
Not so sure, the male g spot is right up there so maybe evolution and biology was having a laugh.
August 20, 2024 @ 10:22 am
Does God find a man using a woman’s digestive tract as a “semen repository” depraved and abhorrent?
August 17, 2024 @ 1:40 pm
Remember when the Foo Fighters absolutely trolled these losers by renting a flatbed, dressing up in costumes and playing Bee Gees as they protested? Not Country, but a boss move regardless.
August 17, 2024 @ 3:22 pm
Would love to see them protest at a soldiers funeral i was attending
August 17, 2024 @ 5:06 pm
I’m for anything that disrupts Isbell. But I truly regret if for Turnpike.
August 18, 2024 @ 10:59 pm
They should unleash Kyle Nix on the protestors.
August 17, 2024 @ 5:52 pm
It’s the “art” in “the art of fag speak” for me.
August 17, 2024 @ 6:13 pm
I used to live/work at a newspaper in Kansas, about 50 miles from Topeka (where Westboro is headquartered). Some weeks we got 5 – 6 of these “press releases” from them. They protest concerts, graduations, plays, you name it. They even threatened to protest out newspaper once. Our policy on Westboro was to ignore them entirely. Attention is the ONLY thing they seek. No turning people to Christ or saving souls — just attention.
Also, they clearly didn’t do a very good job. I was at the show (which was amazing!) and never saw them.
August 17, 2024 @ 6:56 pm
They were also there to protest when Isbell played the same venue with Brandi Carlile and the War and Treaty a few years back
August 17, 2024 @ 7:12 pm
The only fags here are wbc.
August 18, 2024 @ 4:01 am
Would be hilarious to throw eggs at these loons.
August 19, 2024 @ 10:15 am
No, that is what they want. They all lawyers and just want to get a reaction to sue you
August 18, 2024 @ 9:28 am
Jason Isbell has been married two times. He can play (to the best of my knowledge) three instruments – guitar, piano, and mandolin. So coincidentally they almost got that part right.
August 18, 2024 @ 3:56 pm
WBC are just trolls who feed off the negative attention
August 18, 2024 @ 4:36 pm
I CAN LICK ANY SON OF A BITCH IN THE HOUSE –
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TnEAeZRL1Dw
August 18, 2024 @ 11:57 pm
Nutjob Protestants be nutjobbing.
August 19, 2024 @ 3:10 am
In fairness, Isbell does seem pretty faggy. Good on them for protesting Isbell. Not so much the other ones
August 19, 2024 @ 8:04 pm
How in the world does this have 6 upvotes?
August 19, 2024 @ 7:30 am
Lets be clear here, they protested Jason Isbell and Turnpike was incidental. I’ve always suspected that Isbell had daddy issues, this press release educated me to the specifics of the daddy issues. Pentecostal daddy issues are about as metal as daddy issues get.
Jason is a middle aged adult, a minor-celebrity, and very accomplished at his art, it’s time for him to grow up, shake off his child-centered-issues and be a grown man. The rest of us have buddy, it’s your turn.
And fuck the Westboro Baptist Church and their media whoring.
August 19, 2024 @ 7:59 am
Westboro Baptist Church consists of like 10 people, mostly from the same family. They’ve gained notoriety by being master trolls, the most inflammatory protesters on Earth. Mainstream media loves them because they can hold them up as representative of the religious right.
WBC speaks only for themselves and they are considered an embarrassment by approximately 100% of American Christians, Baptist and otherwise.
August 19, 2024 @ 12:12 pm
A cult that has nothing to do with Christ calling someone else dangerous and confused? Crazy.
Lots of people like to use the but “Jesus said line” but never consider what he said about their own actions. Christ did say lots of things, then he was crucified and said, “it is finished.” It’s easy to pick and choose scripture (I just did); it’s about context not agendas.
August 19, 2024 @ 12:55 pm
Makes me want to listen to Jason Isbell since the hate-mongering Westboro Church lemmings have targeted him.You do you,J.I. !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!