Fans, Admirers and A Handful Of Idiots To Be At Dio's Memorial

So, the dumb asses who belong to the idiotic and hateful Westboro Baptist Church otherwise known as the "God Hates Fags" people, have decided to protest the public memorial service for Ronnie James Dio. I was alerted to this by a post on Metalsucks this morning. My initial reaction was outrage, but then the author of the post, Axl Rosenberg, made a good point (or points rather)....ultimately, who cares if these morons are there. When I wrote about WBC two weeks ago, I forgot to mention that their membership only consists of the head of the church (ie. cult leader) Fred Phelps, his children, grandchildren and a few randoms. There numbers total less than 100. They are going to be like a tiny swarm of gnats hovering on the edge of a tremendous gathering of people. And as Axl said, can anyone really take these people seriously?

They posted a flyer and a blog with their rational for protesting Dio's service, but I won't publish links to either because they don't deserve the traffic. I will share two hilarious quotes from the flyer though:

This rebel had a God-given platform – for decades – which he should have utilized to publish the truth of God. Instead, he used that platform – for decades – to teach rebellion against God, in the form glorifying atheism, promoting the devil horn hand sign & other such idolatries. Now he has been cut off by an Angry God & cast into hell.

The arrogant God-hating fool changed his name from Padavona to Dio (meaning “God” in Italian). His Black Sabbath fans worshipped him as a god. He stood idly by & watched his niece, Gen Padavona, become a filthy porn star. God’s promises are true, including his promise to punish the wicked forever. Thank God for dead brute Dio!

Sounds like your average religious zealots hating on heavy metal to promote their own agenda. In other words, it is total nonsense. I think Dio would probably get a laugh out of this as I'm sure he was probably accused of being a heathen more than once during his long, illustrious career. I wouldn't be surprised if a skirmish or two broke out with these people at the service, but I hope Dio's fans take the high road, turn the other cheek and ignore them because being the class act that he was, that is what Dio would do.