Radical antigay (Westboro Baptist) church expands protest (to Grosse Pointe, MI)

[Bozita]

Source: Detroit Free Press

Radical antigay church expands protest
BY PEGGY WALSH-SARNECKI • FREE PRESS EDUCATION WRITER • NOVEMBER 18, 2008

A radical Kansas church’s planned protest this weekend at a Grosse Pointe South High School play has expanded to also include protests at Christ Church in Grosse Pointe Farms and both the Canadian and Mexican consulates in Detroit, according to the group’s Web site.

It’s unclear why the church and those countries were singled out for protest.

The Westboro Baptist Church plans to protest the school’s production of “The Laramie Project,” a play about the torture and beating death of Matthew Shepard, a gay college student who was killed in Laramie, Wyo., in 1998.

The Westboro church, which is not affiliated with the Baptist church, is best known for its rabid intolerance for gay, lesbian, transgender and bisexual individuals. Its Web site has the words, “God hates fags” on the top of its home page.

Read more: http://www.freep.com/article/20081118/NEWS02/81118042/1004

[msongs]

1. gee what if in 200 years it's decided matthew shepard is the new messiah - like what happened to

the mythical jesus character? instead of a cross, it will be a piece of barbed wire.

hmmm.

Msongs

[Politicalboi]

10. Hell that character named Jesus

Hung around with 12 men.

[ccharles000]

2. They are assholes

[Cirque du So-What]

3. Didn't the Phelps family recently get sued to hell & back?

Funny how they still have enough money to take these road trips - including one earlier this month to the funeral of Barack Obama's grandmother, which I'm assuming never occurred, but was obviously within their budget. How about confiscating some more of their assets, dammit!

[Ian David]

4. Look, here's what you do...

You set-up a plywood mock-up that looks just like the REAL Grosse Point South High School, about five miles up the road.

What?

Has that been done before?

[Bicoastal]

7. It worked in Blazing Saddles!

[jmowreader]

9. Won't work. Sorry.

Phelps would drive around the tollbooth, and there's not enough time to make exact replicas of all the students.

[TrogL]

5. Phelps has always hated Canada

He came up here one time to protest and was trying to burn the Canadian flag, expecting a huge outcry. Problem was, he couldn't get it to burn so the RCMP had to give him a hand.

[ksimons]

6. have looked lately, but not found it, but - (( FOUND IT!! )) update

((( link at bottom ))))

..there was a court case a number of years ago in which the Phelps' group I believe had sued an author to prevent a book he was writing about the Westboro Baptist Church from being published - it may have been a series of articles intended for a newspaper, but pressure had kept the newspaper from publishing them so the author had planned to put them out as a book. I believe they won the case and was banned from publishing it, BUT THAT DAMN GENIUS WRITER HAD THE ENTIRE MANUSCRIPT ENTERED AS EVIDENCE IN THE COURT RECORD!!! And I remember downloading a number of years ago and reading it - was scary, fascinating, sick, insightful view of what was going on in that organization.

If anyone can hunt it down, lemme know where ya find it.
Very well written and disturbing stories.



Info update:

"During 1993–94 interviews with the Topeka Capital-Journal, the four Phelps children (out of thirteen, Mark, Nate, Katherine and Dotty) who had left the church asserted that their father’s religious beliefs were either nonexistent to begin with or have dwindled down to nearly nothing. They insist that Westboro actually serves to enable a paraphilia of Phelps, wherein he is literally addicted to hatred. This statement would serve as the inspiration for the title of the book about Phelps’ life, which was never published due to fear of lawsuit, but became public when the author sued the publisher, who maintained that it was a work for hire and therefore could not be taken to another publisher, attaching a copy of the manuscript to the suit as an exhibit thus making it public record. The record was eventually sealed, although the document had already been released over the Internet."

Here's the link - the book starts at "Preface"

http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/michael_haggerty/expose3.htm#TABLE%20OF%20CONTENTS

is a must read!!!!

[Castleman]

8. I had the great pleasure of knocking out one of their assholes

They were protesting a church that was allowing same sex unions, and they were hollering and screaming and whatnot, and when one of the pastors came out of the church they went running over to him, except this one guy who was just too close to avoid, and whoops, his leg got tangled up in mine and he went face first onto the asphalt. Out like a light. Of course, I could have tried to move, but whoopsy, too slow, and for some reason, the fact that my foot was hooked underneath his leg as if I was tripping a guy like back in my hockey days was pure coincidence. Really.

I long for the day when Phelps is repeatedly sodomized in hell for his hate-filled life.

[Norrin Radd]

16. LOL. You are my hero.

[Politicalboi]

11. These pieces of shit

Are terrorist. How do the airlines allow them on a plane. And I'm serious. Grandma gets caught with a butter knife and is on the terrorist list. How come not these nuts.

[WhoIsNumberNone]

15. Here's why-

They may appear ignorant, but they know just what they are doing. Every one of them has been to law school. (I doubt if very many of them have passed the bar, but they all have law degrees) My guess is they know exactly what constitutes hate speech. If you look at any of the many videos of them on YouTube, you'll see that while they are obnoxious and rude, and yell a lot of insults, they never call for violence or any kind of action to be taken against gay people. All they do is say that God will punish you if you don't think like them.

interestingly enough the only violence that ever takes place at their protests is by counter-protesters attacking them. I think this is by design too: They are as abrasive as possible, and maybe someday they will hit the jackpot with a big personal injury suit.

[Commie Pinko Dirtbag]

21. "...they never call for violence or any kind of action to be taken against gay people..."

They urge that countries establish the death penalty fro homosexual activity. That qualifies as a "call for violence" to me.

[Strathos]

12. Isn't that old bastard dead yet?

He looks like a walking corpse, he can't have much time left. Can we vote them off the island?

[Crowman1979]

13. Oh how I wish these assholes would take the wrong exit into the Delray neighborhood in the middle..

..of the night! Anyone from the Detroit area knows what I'm talking about.

[semillama]

14. I was waiting in line to obtain a base pass at a Navy installation today

and all the service people behind the counter were talking about them, and they were all disgusted by him. One of them, a young fellow probably no older than 24, said something to the effect of "Don't they know we're putting our lives on the line so they can practice their religion?"

[superconnected]

17. Chrsit never said anything about Gays, his problem was with bigots.

The whole "God hate's fags" thing where God "Hates" and by proxy Jesus would "hate" just shows how un-holy these people really are.

[HopeHoops]

18. There's a special ballroom in Hell reserved for the entire WBC klan....

It plays 24x7 hits by Boy George, has a disco ball, and all the waiters are "out" and wearing bottomless leather pants and have glitter makeup on their cheeks. Oh, and the only thing on the menu is quiche and the only drink they serve is a cosmopolitan. There is a show every other afternoon - it is always the "Push Out Your Tush" dance from the end of Blazing Saddles. All of the bouncers are KIA soldiers whose funerals they picketed. And by "bouncer", they take the job literally - "Hey Fred, you can check out anytime you like, but you can never leave - this is Hell."

By the way, I like quiche, but I thought I would throw that in anyway. I don't believe God hates anyone, but if it is possible, Phelps and his minions would be at the top of the "to hate" list.

[WhoIsNumberNone]

19. People get so angry with these morons-

which is what they want. They are hoping for violent counter protests- that way they can maintain the persecution complex so dear to right-wingers, and maybe someday hit the jackpot with a big personal injury suit. Don't take the bait folks- Don't get violent when the WBC comes to your town.

I've had this dream of properly counter protesting them though: For this I would require a pickup truck, some PA speakers and an appropriate power supply- and I'd just drown 'em out. Not with boy George either. I was thinking the Mentors live at Cafe de Grande would be suitably offensive.

[HopeHoops]

20. How about Tiny Tim's Greatest Hits?

[AlinPA]

22. They are the republican base.

[MaryEllen9399]

23. they also protest funerals

of miltary that have died in Iraq.

[LeftinOH]

24. It would be fun to 'fake' them out by staging fake funerals of gays, fake

productions of The Laramie Project, etc (actually fake gay-anything)..in all different parts of the country. They'd be run ragged traveling all over the place only to find themselves protesting against *nothing* at long-abandoned cemeteries, long shuttered theaters in bad neighborhoods..

[Crowman1979]

25. That would be a great way to drain their funds.

[gabby garcia]

26. wow!

I graduated from G.P. South High!

They may just have their asses handed to them on a silver platter there.

gg

[noonwitch]

27. The Detroit Police will not mess around with them if they are in front of consulates.

Fred Phelps and his wacky followers are hated equally by conservatives and liberals, albeit for different reasons.

[No Elephants]

28. "Best known for its rabid intolerance" What more needs to be said?

[Bake]

29. Did they protest at the memorial service of Obama's grandmother?

Or could they not afford the trip? I know they had announced plans to go there.

Bake