Million "Fag" March
Rally at Gage Park in Topeka, Kansas
30th May 2009

Phelps and his church are notorious for their anti-gay protests of funerals and schools, claiming that most natural disasters and terrorist attacks are God's punishment for a society that tolerates homosexuality.

He is known for the slogans that he and his ministry use against people he deems sinful, including God Hates Fags.

According to organizer Chris Love, the primary goal of the March is to take the offensive, using the very same rights and laws as the Westboro Baptist Church. Love says his event expresses a message of acceptance of all people; a message that the group hopes will spread beyond the Topeka church.

Last year's event -- the first -- drew a crowd of 420 people from all parts of the country. Love said that the 2008 March was a diverse mix of race, gender, sexual orientation, religious affiliation, and political viewpoint that drew national media attention. The March stresses the use of peaceful and lawful demonstration, and is open to anyone who wishes to join without fear of negative incident.

Over 100 students gathered to demonstrate against six protesters from the Westboro Baptist Church (WBC) advocating against the University of Chicago’s employment of Barack Obama.

The WBC protesters arrived carrying signs reading God hates the world and Bloody Obama. They allowed people to photograph them and held up their signs, smiling. At one point, Shirley Phelps-Roper, WBC’s spokeswoman, sang a joyful rendition of God Hates America.

They were accompanied down the street by a group of students mocking the WBC’s message. The students held a sign reading Figs Doom Nations and planted themselves across the street from the WBC, drawing from a Biblical passage in which Jesus disparages a fig tree. If you need scanty biblical evidence for anything, we’ve got it, said fourth-year Carmel Levy as he handed out flyers containing biblical citations that read: Jesus rebuked the fig as an evil abomination and God Promises Terrible Vengeance Upon Any Fig-Loving Nation.

We just wanted the world to know that God’s vengeance doesn’t just fall on the gay, but also on the fruit, said fourth-year Max Shron.

WBC protesters moved to the Midway to protest the Law School at around 1:00 p.m. Far from being fazed by what they had encountered, they were delighted. I truly and dearly love it, said Shirley Phelps-Roper, the group’s spokeswoman: It is so awesome when you juxtapose this little group of servants of God with this restless mob of humanity. These people think that they have the power, this arrogant nation, to change God. The little girly boys up there with their clothes half off gyrating around—they might as well flip off their god.”

Deputy Dean of Students for Student Affairs Martina Munsters came away with a positive impression of the counter-protest.

From what I’m hearing, it sounds like things went really well. There was no confrontation...[and] students seemed to be pretty upbeat, she said: They even raised about $500 for charity, which I think is tremendous.

The universally reviled nutters of the Westboro Baptist Church are threatening to picket an east London primary school over its anti-homophobia work.

A row broke out at George Tomlinson primary school in Waltham Forest, north-east London, earlier this month when some parents pulled their children out of lessons planned for lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender history month. The school used books on homosexual relationships, in one case between two male penguins.

Members of the Westboro Baptist church in Topeka, Kansas say they will picket the school next Friday afternoon.

The group's founder, Reverend Fred Phelps, was barred from entering Britain last month to stop him spreading extremism and hatred. He had intended to picket a play about a homophobic killing.

A message on the group's website announcing their plans said: God hates the UK and the Tomlinson school fag tyranny, where conscientious parents face religious persecution for withdrawing their children from lessons on lying fag so-called history.

Westboro Baptist Church says it will picket the funeral of Natasha Richardson who died after a skiing accident.

Besides Richardson, who the 'church' says has been targeted because of her donations to AIDS research, her marriage to Liam Neeson, (it's not his first) and her involvement in theater, which the 'church' sees as a haven for homosexuality,

The Westboro Baptist 'Church' of Topeka, Kansas is notorious for its tasteless and frequently nonsensical anti-gay protests.

However, the Westboro protesters may have overreached when they attempted to picket Walt Whitman High School in Bethesda, MD, because it is named after the nineteenth century poet who many biographers believe to have been either homosexual or bisexual.

Whitman sophomores Ryan Hauck and Amar Mukunda set up a Facebook group to generate support for the counter-protest through which more than 600 students have committed to attend.

As it happened, the turnout far exceeded Mukunda's expectation of a couple of hundred. The Washington Post reports that faculty had spun the event into an interdisciplinary lesson. English teachers spent the day teaching Whitman's verse. Social studies teachers led a unit on tolerance. Math teachers fanned through the crowd, attempting a head count.

Although the handful of picketers initially had the street to themselves, that changed dramatically when school was dismissed at 2:10 and five hundred students marched out, chanting the school name alternating with Go home!

LGBT group Driving Equality had even set up a Phelps-a-Thon webpage, promising, For every minute the 'God Hates Fags' clan is protesting, we will be collecting donations for the Walt Whitman High School gay/straight alliance. ... You can pledge any amount you chose, whether it be $0.25, $0.50, $1, or even $2 for every minute they protest. ... After the event, we will send Phelps a thank you card, telling him how much money he raised for LGBT equality.

A cryptic blog post on the Westboro Baptist Church’s website hints that their mission is coming to an end:

BECAUSE IT’S ALMOST TIME TO LEAVE…THAT’S WHY DUMMY!

We are particularly urgent about it, because the time is shortly to come when we will grant you your wicked wish, Doomed america!

Let us see how that is shortly now to play out, my angry little sodomite-loving friends. It’s about time for us to leave this place.

When we’re done, we will leave your filthy land and be placed safely out of the reach of the horror that will then land upon you swiftly and certainly – in one hour.

We pray it to be any day now, for the promises of our God are sure and certain. We finished our job in Napa County – one of the few we have left – and then went to tell the Saints of our God-blessed exploits and our joy.

We gotta go, peeps! We gotta go! And when we do, it’s time for this filthy nation to receive of all the plagues that your Creator has promised. The reason there is such urgency in those words … such passion in the irresistible call from our Saviour, Husband, and Friend … is because when that time comes for this rebellious nation – which is spiritually called Babylon and has become literally Babylon by the inexplicable and forcible snatching of that Mesopotamian land where ancient Babylon sat – it is going to be very fast and very violent, such that all mankind is utterly and simply amazed. Check out the words, fools … it’s all about the words!

Westboro recently lost a massive lawsuit and are bordering on bankruptcy. Their protests have resulted in a backlash from parties well beyond gays and lesbians. Their dynamic leader Fred Phelps is in bad health and some claim near death. Now they want to end their mission and go be with God.

Update: Should We Ignore Them

17th May 2009. See article from blog.beliefnet.com. Thanks to Alan

The Westboro Baptist Church of Topeka Kansas is at it again. This time the target is Jews.

Combining ancient and contemporary forms of anti-Semitism, they continue their traditional combination of hate-mongering and apocalyptic doom. But with only 71 members, I really wonder if it even makes sense to pay them any attention at all. What do you say?

Should groups like this be covered? Are we better off ignoring them? Is that something that decent people can afford to do?

Wherein lies the proper balance between the necessary monitoring of hate-groups and turning such monitoring into a lucrative fear-mongering business of its own?

The funeral of a slain doctor who carried out controversial late-term abortions was held Saturday amid tight security, six days after he was shot dead.

Nutters from Rev Fred Phelps' Westboro Baptist Church inevitably turned out to picket the funeral services for Dr George Tiller.

Around 1,000 mourners gathered in Wichita, in the central US state of Kansas, for the burial of Tiller who was gunned down in the foyer of his church.

Police outside ringed off groups of protesters who held signs claiming God sent the shooter and God hates abortions.

Counter-demonstrators lined the sidewalk directly outside the church, holding white carnations and sporting buttons identical to the one Tiller had worn for decades, which read attitude is everything.

Many anti-abortion groups have denounced his killing and distanced themselves from his alleged killer, Scott Roeder. Earlier this week Roeder was remanded on a five-million-dollar bond, while he faces a state charge of first-degree murder.

Counter Protest

See article from kcjc.com, thanks to Alan

About 100 counter-protestors showed up Saturday morning to show their disdain for the members of Topeka’s infamous Westboro Baptist Church who were there to picket Congregation Ohev Sholom.

It seemed like most of the crowd was Jewish, but there were clearly members of other faiths present, too, from Christian clergymen such as the Rev. Bob Hill to Buddhist leader Lama Chuck Stanford in his red robes to Sikh leader Karta Purkh Singh Khalsa in his white garb and turban. The day before the demonstration, Rev. Hill sent out a notice to members of a local interfaith clergy coalition, alerting his colleagues to the event.

WBC founder Fred Phelps wasn’t in sight Saturday, but four adults, five children and one young woman who appeared to be a teenager held up signs reading things like God Hates Fag Enablers and You’re Going to Hell. One man wore an Israeli flag with one end tucked into the front of his shorts, stepping on the flag as it dragged across the ground.

They stayed on the northeast corner of the intersection, surrounded by police, for 45 minutes, occasionally shouting things at the larger group gathered on the other side of the Street. At one point, they sang to the tune of Hey Jude the following refrain: God hates evil, reprobate Jews; God hates you, You Christ killers.

The counter-protestors mostly stayed quiet and held up home-made signs with such messages as God is Love and Honk if you love Jews. At one point, they broke out a rendition of We Shall Overcome.

The Fred Phelps God Hates Fags lunatics weren't getting enough attention with the picketing of soldiers' funerals and whatnot, so now they are just straight-up taking on the Jews. Hey, they're coming to New York!

This coming Sunday, in New York City's Central Park, the Phelps clan plans to visit an Israeli tourism event, with a calendar entry that reads:

All the remainder can sit and stew in your own filth, remain filthy until the day God spews you out of the land and punishes you for never repenting from having killed Jesus. You will be destroyed at the hand of Antichrist Obama, and you will eat your little cute, chubby, Kosher babies.

Update: Sponsored Hate

28th June 2008. See article from nydailynews.com, thanks to Alan

A Manhattan synagogue turned a visit from hate-spewing demonstrators into a lucrative fund-raiser.

Leaders of Congregation Beth Simchat Torah, a West Village synagogue that caters to gays and lesbians, didn't want to ignore a planned visit by members of the rabidly anti-gay and anti-Semitic Kansas-based Westboro Baptist Church.

Instead, they asked supporters to pledge a dollar or more for every minute that six protesters stood near their synagogue hurling epithets and holding signs that read God Hates Fags and Jews Stole the Land.

The final haul after 50 minutes: $10,000.

A new flier distributed by the Westboro Baptist Church invites its supporters to protest gay icon and equality advocate Lady Gaga, in St. Louis Missouri, the first week on January.

According to the Bible homosexuality is an abomination and she has to shut her filthy mouth and stop promoting it, says attorney and Westboro member Shirley Phelps-Roper, reports Radar Online.

Surreal statements from the event listing on Westboro Baptist's web calendar include:

Lady Gaga has no qualms about displaying her filth for all the world to see, using the platform given to her by God to teach rebellion against Him. She loudly and proudly proclaims her fornication and sexual relations with women, saying that she wants to free and liberate her young fans. Gag! She glories in her shame, encourages everyone she can get her hands on to do the same....Like the many whores who came before her, Lady of the night Gaga thinks she can change God by teaching you to hate Him and liberating you from His standards. ....

And to all those that would follow the example of this treacherous tart.... this warning from God: ....I, will chastise you seven times for your sins. And ye shall eat the flesh of your sons, and the flesh of your daughters shall ye eat. And I will destroy your high places, and cut down your images, and cast your carcases upon the carcases of your idols, and my soul shall abhor you. Lev. 26:27-30. Catch that? Because you won't obey, God will cause you to eat your children, He'll cast your dead bodies on those of your idols, and He'll abhor you. Obeying God is your only recourse at this hour. But because you heed the words of stupid rebels like Lady Gaga INSTEAD of the God who created you, this generation is doomed.

Gaga has been an avid supporter of gay rights, famously appearing at the Marriage Equality March in Washington, D.C. in October.

The Westboro Baptist Church, home of the best known anti-gay protest organization in the US, led by Fred Phelps, has a new target for its public outcry. The organization were set to be picketing outside the San Francisco headquarters of Twitter.

NBC Bay Area reporter Jackson West unearthed the schedule for the group's trip to the Bay Area and writes that after a day of protesting outside Jewish organizations, the congregation will travel to Twitter's brand new office.

The organization says that they aren't protesting against Twitter, rather encouraging the organization to do its duty in serving God. Megan Phelps-Roper, granddaughter of Pastor Phelps, tweets: Don't be silly! We're not protesting Twitter as a platform; that's like picketing television! =) We're picketing the people who run @Twitter, who don't use their position & voice to warn a generation of rebels of the consequences of their rebellion.

The U.S. Supreme Court has agreed to decide whether the father of a fallen soldier can sue religious protesters for picketing at his son's funeral with signs that read Thank God for dead soldiers.

The case will test the boundaries of the Constitution by weighing whether extreme speech that inflicts emotional pain -- especially at sensitive venues such as memorials -- should be protected by the First Amendment.

Members of Westboro Baptist Church, led by pastor and founder Fred Phelps in Topeka, Kansas, have protested at military funerals to express their belief that America is being punished for tolerance of homosexuality.

Westboro protestors traveled to Westminster, Md., to picket at the funeral of Marine Lance Cpl. Matthew Snyder, who killed in combat in Iraq on March 3, 2006. They marched around the outskirts of St. John's Catholic Church and the cemetery with signs that read God Hates the USA, Fag troops and Pope in hell. After the funeral, Phelps also posted material on his Web site against the fallen Marine, saying his father had taught Matthew to defy his creator and raised him for the devil.