Anya CohenWhen thousands of devastated fans tweeted such goodbyes as #RIPCoryMonteith and #InMemoryOfCoryMonteith after the young Glee star's fatal heroin-and-alcohol OD on Saturday, a new trending hashtag spread among the “Gleek” twitter community: #GleeksAreStrongerThanWBC.
The always-unwelcome Westboro Baptist Church has brought a virulent new level of hate to bear on Monteith's tragic, premature death, announcing plans to picket his funeral. The date and location of the memorial have yet to be announced. But the gays-hating — and friends-of-gays-hating — WBC continues to make clear that it plans to be in ugly attendance.
“Westboro Baptist Church is GLEE-ful over God's righteous judgment to end @CoryMonteith's life!” a twitter account claimed by the church tweeted. “Funeral picket soon!”
Credit: Via the Westboro Baptist Church Twitter page
Monteith was straight, but Glee preaches — sings? — acceptance of homosexuality. Set in conservative Lima, Ohio, its storyline depicts many characters struggling with revealing their sexuality. Two prominent homosexual couples have been featured in the show's four seasons.
Glee's open support for homosexuals is clearly fueling WBC's keen interest in Monteith's funeral.
WBC's stream of shockingly hateful tweets — which continue apace today — also have verbally attacked Lea Michele, Monteith's long-term girlfriend and co-star of Glee. They tweeted of her, “Will @msleamichele kill herself as well? Then the wedding can go on as planned IN HELL! – invites for all their fans!”
The hashtag #PrayForLea has become a popular Gleek twitter outlet, with supportive tweets attempting to console Michele and plea that she not blame herself for Monteith's overdose.
Reports indicate that Michele stood by Monteith during his second stint in rehab in April. The charming, baby-faced Monteith publicly discussed his struggle with addiction, admitting to binge drinking and drug abuse that began at age 13. At 19, Monteith checked into rehab — after his friends and family undertook an intervention.
Yet nothing seemed to work for the talented 31-year-old. On Tuesday, the British Columbia Coroner's Service ruled his death in Vancouver's luxury high-rise Fairmont Pacific Rim Hotel to be the result of mixed-drug toxicity involving heroin and alcohol. All signs indicate the OD was an accident.
Westboro's obsessed judge and jury condemned not only the young actor but all of Canada, an unrelated random stabbing and a tragic Canadian train explosion thousands of miles away, intoning on Twitter a few hours ago: “If not vaporizing Ur Quebec citizens, or making Ur stars suicidal, God's sending a stabber to evil Canada.”
It's worth noting that this “church,” though it has a fairly sizable 15,900 Twitter followers, including a healthy number who probably track them out of fear and loathing, doesn't give a damn about the outside world. It's following just 14 others.
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