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Shirley Phelps-Roper held a bright neon painted sign that read "Thank God for 9-11" and claimed it was her duty to come to Cleveland.
"You've got a bunch of lying false prophets that are running the churches around here and being paid to tell people that God loves them," Roper said.She's the right-wing extremist spawn of a right-wing extremist...Shirley Phelps-Roper, of Topeka, in a telephone interview Monday, told the story of her father, now 75, and what set him on the path that would make him one of America's most virulent foes of homosexuality.
Signs stating "God hates fags," "Thank God for Sept. 11" and "Turn or burn" have become a hallmark of his followers' demonstrations. Phelps, who for a time was a lawyer, has since been disbarred. His daughter said 11 of his 13 children have attended law school.
The Web site for Westboro Baptist Church has an online memorial devoted to Matthew Shepard, a gay Wyoming man who was brutally beaten to death in 1998. Phelps' group protested at Shepard's funeral, and the online memorial keeps count of the days - 2,241 as of Monday - since his death and descent "into hell." http://www.rickross.com/reference/westboro/westboro26.html and...New Paltz – They stood on opposite sides of Main Street, four narrow lanes and a million miles apart from each other. On one side, nine strangers, related by blood, marriage and impermeable belief, shouted unholy accusations to people who stood in a cold, misty rain across the street from the New Paltz United Methodist Church. "God hates fags!" "God hates America!" "You're degenerate filth!" The Westboro Baptist Church of Topeka, Kan., had just begun the first of eight hate-fueled protests in what they see as godless New Paltz. Across Main Street, scores of locals, a mix of friends, acquaintances, strangers and news people stood in quiet astonishment as the sons and daughters and grandchildren of Pastor Fred Phelps sang their songs of hate and spoke their words of apocalyptic prophecy. The stunned silence from that side of the street didn't last long. As Shirley Phelps-Roper began singing "God Hates America," the crowd picked up the tune and the cue, returning lyric fire by singing the original lyrics of "God Bless America." It was a pattern that held throughout the morninglong protests. http://www.recordonline.com/archive/2004/04/05/jhphelps.htm A real piece of work, that one. One of the other "humans" quoted in the OP's article, Katherine Hockenbarger, is another nut-job from Fred Phelps' "church" in Kansas who showed up in Massachusetts to be assholes. But at least one justice of the peace applied for that job in order to be able to solemnize gay marriages. J. Mary Sorrell, 43, of Amherst, became a justice of the peace in February and planned to be at the city clerk's office in Northampton, a gay-friendly college town, at 5 a.m. Monday, so that the expected crush of same-sex couples know she is available to marry them.
"I am a lesbian and I wanted to make sure that there was a visible member of our community who was not merely willing to solemnize same sex marriages, but who was excited as a member of the tribe," Ms. Sorrell said.
Across the street from Cambridge City Hall on Sunday night were a dozen or so opponents of gay marriage led by a Kansas minister, the Rev. Fred Phelps, and holding signs, some with slurs against homosexuals.
"Two men and two women marrying each other is a passport to hell" said Katherine Hockenbarger from Topeka, Kan., who was standing on an American flag. http://www.theocracywatch.org/gay_marriage_first_day_times.htm Just google either name...they're both sick f***s.
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