Kevin Smith says Fred Phelps puts him in a Red State

The fellas over at Queerty spotted an interesting news item today: it seems that filmmaker Kevin Smith's rumored new horror movie is actually based on notorious homo-hater Fred Phelps -- or at least, on his way of thinking.

In an interview with RottenTomatoes, Smith explains how the very existence of hate-mongers like Phelps scares him just as much as the Boogeyman or Dracula might scare other folks:

"...the notion of using a Phelps-like character as a villain, as horrifying and scary as that guy can be, there's even something more insidious than him that lurks out there in as much as a public or a government that allows it and that's the other thing that I'm trying to examine in a big, big way."

Considering Phelps' creepy preoccupation with homosexuality and Smith's openness to gay themes and storylines in the past (Chasing Amy -- love it or hate it -- was undeniably a brave film for a straight guy from New Jersey to make), one can guess that his film, titled Red State, will feature gay content of some sort. Smith has come under fire for some of the gay jokes in his past movies, but he has always insisted that these comments are meant to be taken in a context -- he actually credits his out gay older brother as teaching him a lot about relationships and calls his commitment ceremony the "best wedding I've ever been to" (check out this great interview with Smith on the topic for more).

For those of you not familiar with Smith's expletive-filled brand of broad comedy, here's a scene from Chasing Amy which manages to tackle race, comic books, homosexuality, marketing, and Star Wars all in one breath.