Dio Funeral Joyful Despite Protests

Rightwing "godhatesfags.com" church just ain't no good at stoppin' the rockin'...

By Fred Mills

The Associated Press is reporting this morning that the funeral service held yesterday in Los Angeles at Forest Lawn Memorial Park came off unscathed despite the presence of "a few members" of the notorious Westboro Baptist Church who demonstrated outside the Park's gates.

WBC, of course, is led by homophobic fundamentalist preacher Fred Phelps of Topeka, Kansas, and the home of the ever-delightful GodHatesFags.com anti-gay website. The church had indicated they intended to disrupt the service because Dio pioneered the so-called "devil horn" sign and encouraged music fans to worship the devil and hate god. On their website they had posted a message that encouraged members to show up at the funeral in L.A. "to remind you who worship that old serpent, Satan, that your time is very short... We'll be there! Just because the chances of any of God's elect being amongst this group of heavy metal sycophants is slim to none does not mean they should not get some good words."

Speaking of good words, Phelps & Co. handily forgot to mention that Dio and his wife had been very socially active over the years, most notably with Children of the Night, which is a teenage prostitution rehabilitation organization.

At any rate, "heavy metal sycophants" clearly outnumbered the Bible-thumpers, and as more than 1,200 fans inside the Park's Hall of Liberty and hundreds more gathered outside, artists such as Scott Warren of Heaven and Hell, John Payne of Asia, Joey Belladonna of Anthras, Glenn Hughes of Deep Purple, Geoff Tate of Queensryche and Paul Shortino of Quiet Riot performed in tribute to the late Dio.

The rocker passed away May 16, at age 67, from stomach cancer.