Fred Phelps’ hate group has come to our town.......

[G_j]

http://www.smokymountainnews.com/issues/04_04/04_21_04/fr_preacher_plans.html

week of 4/21/04

Preacher plans WCU protest over ‘Laramie Project’
By Sarah Kucharski


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All of Rev. Fred Phelps’ homosexual hating may be in vain, at least in terms of garnering a reaction from the Western Carolina University community.

The Topeka-based preacher, head of Westboro Baptist Church, has planned three protests to be held on the school’s campus over the course of two days, a response he says to the “sodomite whorehouse masquerading” as the university and its staging of “The Laramie Project.”

The play is about the community of Laramie, Wyoming’s, reaction to and struggle with 21-year-old Matthew Shepard’s brutal murder by two of its own residents, Aaron McKinney, 20, and Russell Henderson, 21.

Shepard was a student at the University of Wyoming in Laramie. The facts of the case are that one night Shepard met McKinney and Henderson at a local bar and was supposedly going to get a ride home from the two. Instead, when Shepard, who was gay, allegedly came on to one of the men, they beat him, robbed him, tied him to a fence and left him to die.


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they will be protesting outside local churches today!
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http://cgi.citizen-times.com/cgi-bin/story/editorial/53789

Local churches send a message of love and tolerance as protesters descend

By SPECIAL TO CITIZEN-TIMESApril 24, 2004 7:55 p.m.
Today, members of Westboro Baptist Church in Topeka, Kan., will be in Asheville to protest at six of our city churches. This group, coming of its own volition with no provocation from any of us, brings with it a message of hate masked as religious values, and seeks to confuse and publicly criticize church communities who do not follow the dictates of the gospel as they understand it.

They are known for their intolerant attitudes toward churches and individuals who differ with them on matters of theology and politics. They are not interested in civil conversation about how the church may share the grace and love of Jesus Christ and the gift of Christian community with all people. Instead they view the recognition of diversity and complexity as "compromise" of the gospel message and they condemn any individual or group, which seeks to understand and minister to people of diverse attitudes and lifestyles.

We, the pastors of the six churches targeted for protest here in Asheville, have come together to show our solidarity in the faith we share in Jesus Christ and to make clear to the people we serve, as well as the broader community, that we believe:

- "Hate" can never be used as a means to describe the action(s) of God in relation to people or circumstances in our world.

- The gospel compels all believers to embrace and share the love of God we find in Christ Jesus the Lord in our attitudes, our ideals, our openness and our hospitality to others.

-Our Christian faith admonishes us to see the presence of God in every heart and lifetime and to proclaim the good news that God's gift of salvation is never exclusive or mediated by human judgment.


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[Nlighten1]

1. I wish he would come to my town.

[Forkboy]

2. One of the best days of my life was spent

protesting this idjit in Provincetown,Ma.Comedy most certainly isn't dead :)

[benburch]

3. I want a "pulp fiction" moment with old Fred

[Pepperbelly]

4. My church ... the one Hillary belonged to in Little Rock ... was picketed

while the Big Dog was still in office. The butts showed up during Sunday services and when we left the sanctuary, we were faced with signs about the Whore of Babylon and Poor Chelsea and like garbage. News4 was, of course, johnny-on-the-spot. So were the cops.

Interesting.

[boobooday]

5. He threatened to come to our university

RE: the Laramie Project, but never showed.

We were SOOOO ready for him.

http://www.wgoeshome.com

[DU9598]

6. Make some money

What we did in Des Moines and Sioux City was to make his appearance into fundraisers. Get people to donate a certain amount, maybe $10.00 for every hour that they are there. So, the longer they picket the more money you make. You can also do it by the minute, which may be more effective.

[doni_georgia]

8. Awesome Idea! Donate the money to PFLAG N/T

[doni_georgia]

7. Get a group together and protest his protest!

If I had known about this sooner, I would have loaded up the car and headed to Asheville. There's a group similar to his that protests homosexuality in front of the Walmart in our town every Saturday. That's why I initially started boycotting Walmart (i have since learned a lot more about Walmart so I have an entire litany of reasons for boycotting them). I personally believe that there is a special section in hell reserved for these people.

[dsc]

9. Why would you boycot Walmart for letting people protest?

Presumedly they didn't endorse them just refrain from kicking them off the lot. That is a good thing.

[benburch]

13. There are LOTS of better reasons to boycott WalMart

To which this just adds a slightly bitter taste.

[G_j]

12. I just drove around town past

various churches looking for them and possible counter-protests but didn't see anything.
I should have brought a list of the Churches they were supposed to be protesting but I forgot. If they did show up it will probably be on the nightly news.

[catmandu57]

10. I may get in trouble for this, but

I really wish that someone would send this sick fuck and his sick band of followers to meet their savior, and leave the rest of us alone.

[coloradodem2005]

11. You mean send them to hell. Don't you?

[The Lone Liberal]

14. When I see Sh*t head such a Phelps

I cannot help but remember good, ole boy Jimmy Swaggert walking around with the crotch cut out of his jogging pants. Not, that ever Christian does that, they don’t, but most of the high visibility, evangelical preachers have done something like that, mostly its shagging the deacons’ wives.