Westboro Protests Pride Week
By Broadside Staff Writer Patrick Wall. Photo courtesy of Chris Mason/Driving Equality.
Following a protest in Seaford, Del., a group of picketers are hurried into their van by police. They drive off as an angry mob forms around them, banging on the van and screaming at the top of their lungs. Suddenly, there is a crashing noise as one of the van’s windows is shattered.
This is just another day for members of the Westboro Baptist Church, best known for protesting with signs that include sayings like, “God Hates Fags” and “Pray for More Dead Soldiers.”
Members of the church were scheduled to picket on campus this morning at 7:30 a.m. to protest Pride Week. The church’s website, http://godhatesfags.com, describes it as a “festival of pure evil.”
After hearing about the upcoming picket, freshman film and video studies major Kat Reach created a Facebook event to organize a silent counter-protest. By Broadside’s print deadline, the group had over 250 members planning to attend.
“[We want] to block out their message of hate,” said Reach. “We’re not a hate-filled campus.”
George Mason University’s Pride Alliance will also be present, working with the Driving Equality project, a group which examines equal rights issues nationwide.
The two groups will be hosting a “Phelps-A-Thon” as a counter-protest. For every minute the Westboro Baptist Church is protesting, the Pride Alliance will be collecting donations for LGBTQ resources and holding a sign showing how much has been raised. In the past, this technique has caused the picketers to leave early.
Many see the counter-protest as an example of the unity of Mason students.
“It’s always really refreshing to see the reactions that people have to that kind of message [of hate].” said Pride Alliance co-chair Marissa Mack.
The Westboro Baptist Church was formed in Topeka, Kansas in 1955 by Fred Phelps. Since its creation, he and his followers have traveled across the country picketing institutions and gatherings.
While the church believes the world is in peril, Phelps and his followers pay special attention to homosexuality. They believe many of the nation’s recent tragedies, including the September 11 attacks, were divine punishment.
The church entered the national spotlight in 1998 when it picketed the funeral of Matthew Shepard, a University of Wyoming student who was tortured and killed for being gay. The picketers held up signs that included sayings like “Matthew Shepard Rots in Hell.” Phelps also unsuccessfully petitioned two Wyoming cities to build a monument for Shepard that displayed the date of his death as the day he entered Hell.
The group has since made headlines picketing military funerals. Their website describes American soldiers as “incompetent idiots looking for jobs because they're not qualified for honest work.” The pickets caused President George W. Bush to sign a law preventing protesters from coming within 150 feet of a military funeral.
Phelps and his followers have also caused controversy overseas. Both Phelps and his daughter Shirley Phelps-Roper were banned from the United Kingdom last month after planning to protest an anti-homophobia play in Britain.
The group says it is religiously based, but many religious figures disagree with their message. Father Peter Nassetta, Chaplain of the George Mason University’s Catholic Campus Ministry, feels Christianity is vastly different from what the WBC preaches.
“There is a well-known phrase,” Nassetta said. “‘You can hate the sin, but you love the sinner.’ You can say that God hates sin. But he loves people.”
Phelps-Roper, however, scoffs at the notion that other religious institutions are preaching the word of God.
“They do not preach the gospel that is contained in the Bible,” she said. “They preach the traditions of their rebellious fathers.”
Although the WBC considers itself to be Primitive Baptist, the official Primitive Baptist Church does not recognize Phelps’ congregation. In a statement by Elder David Montgomery, the church, “[Finds] the actions of these people to be deplorable and against the very Scriptures they claim to believe.”
After leaving Mason, the picketers plan to protest the White House and President Obama, who they believe is the Antichrist.
The group has a full schedule of picketing planned. Regardless of where they go, one thing is certain—controversy will follow.
“God love them,” Nassetta said. “Because they don’t seem to love anyone, or think God loves anyone.”
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