Religious Left

Protest in Silverton

Karen Bouffard / The Detroit News GROSSE POINTE FARMS -- The controversial play, The Laramie Project, is an account of the torture and beating death of gay college student Matthew Shepard in Laramie, Wyo., in 1998. Grosse Pointe South Principal D. Allan Diver said Monday the students will get a real-life lesson in the need for tolerance. "If a hate group shows up, it would concern me a lot. But no, I would not cancel the play," Diver said, noting he received just one parent complaint about the play, which was selected by a committee that included teachers and parents. "That would be exactly what they want. I would use the protest as a teachable moment, because it is." The Westboro Baptist Church has staged loud protests against the play nationwide, including at about 20 high schools, church-member Shirley Phelps-Roper told The Detroit News on Monday.

By Rachel Charman Pink News UK Westboro Baptist Church (WBC), the anti-gay Christian organisation, has voiced the opinion that John Edwards is "cursed" by God. Edwards, the former Senator for North Carolina, has been part of the campaign to end the U.S. military's "don't ask, don't tell" policy regarding LGBT members of the armed forces. The WBC claimed on Saturday 16th that Edwards is a "fag enabler", who attacked the WBC for "preaching God's holy truth about fags." full article

by James Hipps GayAgenda.com A Texas man convicted of killing a male flight attendant was given a life sentence and was also found guily of a hate crime. Terry Mark Mangum, 27, of Cypress, killed Kenneth Cummings, 46, because he “hated homosexuals” was the Wednesday verdict delivered by a jury. Mangum pleaded not guilty due to insanity. One psychologist said he was “a cauldron of hate.” Another said he wanted to “rid the world of a harvest of sin.” Jeremy Warren, the prosecutor saidm “The sin he focused on was homosexuality.” Mangum has been associated with the infamous church of Fred Phelps . full article

CTV.ca News Staff Shirley Phelps-Roper, the daughter of the founding member of the Westboro Baptist Church, told CTV.ca a group of seven members was turned away when they tried to cross the U.S. border into Canada Thursday night. But she said other members managed to get through at another border crossing, although she would not say how many. Phelps-Roper and her church have outraged Canadians by planning to protest Tim McLean's funeral. Members of the ultra-conservative Christian church claim McLean, who was decapitated by a fellow-passenger on a Greyhound bus last month, deserved his fate. Although no member of the group ever met McLean, they claim he lived an immoral and godless life, just like all other Canadians. full article

Paul Gackle, Winnipeg Free Press WINNIPEG -- Residents rallied Thursday to protect the family of a young man murdered on a Greyhound bus last week from a posse of radical religious protesters planning to portray Tim McLean's death as God's wrath. Earlier this week, the Westboro Baptist Church - an organization branded as a hate group and infamous for protesting the funerals of slain U.S. soldiers - announced they would picket Mr. McLean's funeral to let Canadians know that his decapitation was God's response to Canadian policies enabling abortion, homosexuality and adultery. But Shirley Phelps-Roper, daughter of church's founder, Fred Phelps, said a small group of protesters was stopped at the Canada-U.S. border on Thursday afternoon. "They won't let us in, but we have a group that will cross in another spot," she said. "They'll have to strip search everyone who crosses that border or they won't know who we are. They'll have to see the...

by Joal SameSame.com.au There’s a new cabaret production opening in Toronto, Canada tonight, but the high camp theatrics are likely to begin long before the curtain goes up. It’s the premiere of The Pastor Phelps Project: A Fundamentalist Cabaret, and guess who’ll be picketing outside? You guessed it. The Phelps. Homophobe pastor and inspiration for the play, Pastor Fred Phelps, has said he and his congregation will be picketing outside the play with their placards, ‘God Hates Fags’ and ‘God Hates Canada’. A self proclaimed ‘primitive Baptist’ preacher, Phelps’ views couldn’t be any more old-school, preaching that America’s failure in the Iraq war and environmental disasters like Hurricane Katrina are due to the ‘moral decline’ of the US. And his biggest problem with his own country? Its acceptance of homosexuals. full article

Eastern Michigan University (EMU) was just notified that Fred Phelp, Minister of the Westboro Baptist Church and owner of the GodHatesFags.com website, will be protesting on Friday, May 9th at 12noon against a student organization that allegedly promotes the sodomite agenda. Head over to Queer Michigan and see the rest of the article Casey wrote .

original article In a 52-page decision, U.S. District Judge Richard D. Bennett affirmed the jury's verdict in favor of the father of Lance Cpl. Matthew Snyder. Albert Snyder successfully sued the church for emotional distress and invasion of his family's privacy after Westboro Baptist Church members waved signs decrying homosexuality at his son's funeral in March 2006. "There was more than sufficient evidence to support the jury's verdict that [Westboro's] conduct before, during and after the funeral of Matthew Snyder was outrageous [and] highly offensive to a reasonable person," Bennett wrote. But the judge also more than halved the $10.9 million award announced in October to $5 million, noting constitutional concerns of appropriateness. He held up the jury's compensatory damage award of $2.9 million but reduced the total punitive damages to $2.1 million. full article comment by tom: Where was all the concern for the gay funerals (mostly AIDS victims)...

Now Craig has come under fire from an entirely new quarter: the church of right-fringe anti-gay Rev. Fred Phelps. In a press release dated Aug. 28, Westboro Baptist Church, located in Topeka, Kansas, exhorted followers to "Thank God for revealing a bit of truth about Sen. Larry Craig of Idaho; and, by a logical extension, about the United States Congress." Said the church’s press release, "Sen. Craig used his powerful office--(on loan from God, temporarily)--to oppose [Westboro Baptist Church], to speak against WBC, and to vote against WBC’s Constitutional rights of free religious exercise and freedom of speech." http://www.edgeboston.com/index.php?ch=news&sc=glbt&sc2=news&sc3=&id=22898 .