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.

BBC News has an interesting interview with writer/reporter, Louis Theroux. Theroux spent three weeks with the Rev. Fred Phelps who runs the Westboro Baptist Church in Topeka Kansas and organizes those incredibly vile pickets you often see at large LGBT events. The ones with signs reading "GOD HATES FAGS" or "AIDS is GOD's PUNISHMENT."

I've always been curious what sort of perverted minds would consider it their life mission to spew such ugly vitriol. The BBC interview with Theroux shines some light on the subject and so for me was worth reading.

Some basic facts about Phelps: He's the head of Westboro Baptist Church and the church's 71 members are mostly Phelps' extended family. (They all call him "Gramps"). Phelps has 13 children. Four of these kids "fell away", meaning they left the Church. Once anyone leaves they become ostracized by the rest of the family.

The BBC asked Theroux why he was motivated to spend three weeks with Fred Phelps and his family.

"What we're trying to do in this documentary is look at an activity that is so antisocial, so strange, so futile and at its worst, so cruel, and we're saying 'Why? Why do that?', especially when you seem to be, for the most part, kind and sensitive people. We're exploring what is cruelty, trying to explain how something that really does very often just amount to cruelty could be perpetuated and passed down in a family. Why would nice people do such horrible things?"

Theroux thinks he found an answer...

"I think that the pastor is not a very nice person. I think he's an angry person who's twisted the Bible and picked and chosen verses that support his anger, that sort of justify his anger, and he's instilled that in his children and they've passed it on to their children. Although the second and third generation are by and large quite nice people from what I saw, they still live under the influence of their Gramps.

"It shows you what strange avenues the religious impulse can take you down. I think another part of the answer is that parts of the Christian Bible are pretty weird. There's a lot of weird stuff in there and when you take that and you add this angry, domineering kind of a father figure, which is Gramps, and you add that he has sort of separated them off from other people, other families and driven them to achieve a lot, and he was kind of a charismatic guy, and still is up to a point. He was a very verbal, very persuasive, an extremely compelling speaker. All these things added together combined to make a powerful influence."

Theroux's documentary, The Most Hated Family in America, airs in the UK on Sunday on BBC Two. No word yet on when or if it will be shown in the US.