Gay rights advocate buys house across from Westboro Baptist Church, paints it rainbow colors

USA - Gay rights advocate buys house across from Westboro Batptist Church, paints it rainbow colors

By the end of today, the inhabitants of the Westboro Baptist Church compound in Topeka, Kansas, should have a new view out their windows, just past their FAG MARRIAGE DOOMS NATIONS sign: a new gay-rights center across the street, painted in brilliant rainbow colors, with a pride flag flying from a 30-foot flagpole. Right now, a crew of volunteers is at work on the siding of a house opposite the headquarters of the publicity-hunting hate-preacher Fred Phelps.

The center is the work of a roving do-gooder named Aaron Jackson, a 31-year-old community-college dropout whose other projects have included opening orphanages in India and Haiti and buying a thousand acres of endangered rain forest in Peru. This year, his charity, Planting Peace, also intends to de-worm every child in Guatemala. Jackson was drawn to Topeka after reading about Josef Miles, the local boy who last year, at the age of nine, photobombed one of the Westboro protests with a handmade sign that read “God Hates No One.” Jackson had been looking for a way to support equality, anti-bullying programs, and some sort of pro-LGBT initiative, he said.

“I’ve been accused in the past of being all over the place, and they’re probably right on some level,” Jackson told me last night by phone. “Right now we are standing up to bigotry and promoting equality.”

So while considering the Westboro Baptist Church, he began dinking around on Google Maps late one night. He pulled up the church, at 3701 SW 12th St. in Topeka, and took a virtual walk around the block. In the front yard of a house across the street, he noticed a For Sale sign.

“It hit me right away,” Jackson told me last night by phone. “Huh. That would be interesting to own a house across from the Westboro Baptist Church and turn it into something.’ And then, within five seconds: ‘And I’ll paint it the color of the pride flag.’ Perfect.”

The house he’d thought for sale no longer was, but he found another, two doors down, that was still across the street from the Westboro compound. It was listed for something in the $80,000s.

“I find that if you have a hate group in front of your home, that should bring the price of your home down just a little bit,” Jackson said. “Unfortunately the gentleman that was selling the house, he didn’t seem to agree with me.” The guy wouldn’t budge. Jackson was tempted to walk away. “What he did not know,” Jackson said, “where he had me, was I needed this home. I had to have this house. There was no way around it.”

Eventually the guy dropped to 81 and threw in a new roof. Jackson bought it sight unseen, without knowing so much as the number of bedrooms. Turns out there are two bedrooms, one bathroom, a carpeting dining area, two garages (the house sits at a corner), a fireplace, hardwood floors, a small porch, and a decent-sized yard that overlooks the headquarters of an active hate group. “The view is what I bought the home for,” Jackson said. He closed on it about six months ago. In January he and his friend Davis Hammet, a 22-year-old Florida State grad, drove up from Florida overnight to move in. “We thought we were about to become popsicles,” Hammet said. They’ve been hunkering down, waiting for the weather to break, so they could get the house painted.

The plan is to ride the coattails of Westboro’s own media strategy. “We’re going to take the negative attention and try to spin it into something positive,” Hammet said. “Instead of millions of children around the world getting this hate message, they’re going to see this message of compassion and love.”

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At Vassar College, Love Conquers All

image

BY MATTHEW ORTILE

The school raised over $100,000 for LGBTQ charities in counter-protest to Westboro Baptist Church

Photo by Rachel Garbade

TW: gay slur; slurs

On February 12, the Westboro Baptist Church announced it would protest Vassar College, a liberal arts college in upstate New York, but better known to Fred Phelps and his family as an “Ivy League Whorehouse” home to “doomed American academics” who “promote the fag agenda with all their might.” Since Westboro isn’t exactly inconspicuous and announced their visit way in advance, Vassar and the surrounding community were able to mobilize in preparation for the big day.

Full disclosure: I’m currently a junior at Vassar and wear my #VCpride on my sleeve. While Westboro gave too much credit—we’re not an official Ivy nor have I ever had a Yale boyfriend—their bit about “the fag agenda” is 100 percent true.

The most headline-worthy effort last month was Vassar alumnus Josh de Leeuw’s Crowdrise.com fundraiser which promised to donate $100 to The Trevor Project for every minute Westboro would protest, a scheduled 45 minutes at 1:45pm on February 28 (after protesting a memorial service at the United States Military Academy at West Point a short drive away). The fundraiser sped past the goal of $4,500 and now clocks in at over $100,000 thanks to Vassar students, faculty, families, and supporters. All sorts of pride, Vassar and otherwise, were seen all over the nation. Alums everywhere were sounding the horns of battle: Andy Towle of Towleroad and Alice Walton of Forbes wrote and displayed their colors proudly, and Meghan Daum of the Los Angeles Times said, “Though I fear that the college is essentially functioning as a Westboro publicity machine, I also know that the excellent tactic of just ignoring the church would simply never hold up at a place like Vassar.”

And certainly, the campus was doing anything but ignoring the impending Westboro protest. Student group Do Something VC took the lead in harnessing the Westboro-Vassar publicity and fundraised for local causes. Shirts saying “Love Conquers All” in grey and pink, Vassar’s school colors, were being given away with every donation to support the Hudson Valley chapter of GLSEN and the Ali Forney Center in New York City. On the day of Westboro’s protest, Do Something VC executed a counter-protest and rally that included musical performances, a human chain around the Main Building, and several speakers who addressed cheering crowds. The keynote speaker was Vassar alum Pastor Joseph Tolton who told the college community and all those participating physically and emotionally, “Be strong in the face of adversity. You are not second-class citizens. Your sexuality and your gender identity are not burdens—they are blessings.”

As for the actual presence of the Westboro Baptist Church, they materialized as four individuals with signs saying, “USA’s doom,” “Soldiers die 4 fag marriage,” and of course, “God hates fags.” Westboro’s welcome wagon was the counter-protest comprised of at least 600 Vassar community members and supporters from all over the Hudson Valley, including neighboring colleges such as Marist College, SUNY New Paltz, and West Point. Westboro left earlier than intended, at approximately 2:20 p.m. Alison Ehrlich, Vassar’s sophomore class president and fundraising/alumni outreach facilitator for Do Something VC, could not have been a prouder Vassar girl that day. “There was this kind of energy all around campus,” she said, “that something big was happening, something exciting.” And Vassar’s student body president Jason Rubin said, “The day was really about us and our community and we didn’t let Westboro take that away from us.”

But the campus was not without its dissenters. Some students spoke critically of the direction the college and its administration took in addressing Westboro. Concern was raised in the misguided pride in the “whorehouse label” and others asked, “Why now, and why this cause?” — especially when Vassar students are championing at least 50 other causes at any given time. Dissatisfied with the purported theme of “us not them,” Vassar sophomore Genesis Hernandez said, “The minute that Westboro was present, students left to go and gander, even though students were still speaking at the counter-protest.” As for Vassar’s new identity as the “Ivy League Whorehouse,” Rubin recognizes the problematic semiotics. “While I understand the desire to reappropriate the insult into something humorous or empowering,” said Rubin, “it’s important to recognize the way the term makes people on campus feel uncomfortable and oppressed. It’s an example of something our campus needs to think critically about how we define who we are.”

While morale and pride definitely stemmed from fighting Westboro and their hate-speech, Ehrlich insists support mainly grew out of a more positive commonality: love and inclusion. “Vassar itself gets very divided at times with different issues happening on campus or in the world,” she says. “But Westboro gave the Vassar and regional community the opportunity to come together to celebrate values that we all share.” And that same night, beloved NYC drag rapper and Out100 lister Mykki Blanco performed to a packed crowd at Vassar. Serendipitously, it was a positive day for human rights on a national level as well: on February 28, the Obama administration asked the Supreme Court to declare that it was unconstitutional for California to pass an amendment in 2008 excluding same-sex couples from marriage.

While Westboro and their antics look like they won’t stop anytime soon, Vassar — and this proud Vassar boy included — hopes Westboro can continue to serve as a catalyst for a strong and positive counter-response benefiting others, reaffirming the truth that love really does conquer all.

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Westboro Baptist Church plans protest against pro-gay NASCAR driver

BY JOE MORGAN

TW: gay slur
NASCAR driver Brad Keselowski said he would not care whether he had a gay member in his team, but it has brought the anger of the Westboro Baptist Church.
The Westboro Baptist Church is planning a protest of an upcoming motor racing event in response to pro-gay comments made by a famous driver. Brad Kaselowski, who drives and owns a team in the stock car racing events, was asked last week byQueers4Gears how he would feel about a gay person in his team.

He said: ‘I can’t speak for the fans, I can only speak for myself, but in this garage, if you can win, people will want to be a part of what you can do.’

Fred Phelps Jr, son of the pastor who heads the ‘God Hates Fags’ US church, tweeted: ‘Who new (sic) NASCAR race car was a fag car #godhatesfagsdotcom!’ Margie Phelps, another member, said: ‘Whew @Noble_Jim @dustinlong -looks like we scheduled @NASCAR @keselowski picket just in time! New sign: NASCAR

It is unknown when the WBC will be picketing, but is likely to happen when the Spring Cup comes to the church’s home state of Kansas on 21 April. Michael Myers, who runs Queers4Gears, told OutSports: ‘I guess when the Westboro Baptist Church has a problem with what I’ve been doing at Queers4Gears then I know I’ve been doing something right. I think the WBC is operating under a false pretence if they think their brand of hate-faith would be accepted at a NASCAR race.’

Recently, two daughters of lead group figure Shirley Phelps quit the WBC and apologized for their actions. Last year, Kaselowski wrote on Twitter: ‘Understand the constitutional rights allowing some1 2 protest a funeral & feel their should b another allowing them to be punched in the face.’

Evan Darling was for a short while the only openly gay NASCAR driver. But when he came out in 2007, sponsorship quickly dried up and he was forced to quit professional racing.

NC approves tougher funeral protest rules in response to anti-gay church

The North Carolina General Assembly has given final approval to a measure that would impose stronger criminal penalties for people who disrupt funerals or memorial services.

The measure comes in response to the anti-gay Westboro Baptist Church, known for protesting at soldiers’ funerals, claiming their deaths are God’s punishment for American immorality and tolerance of homosexuality and abortion. The measure requires protesters to stay farther away from mourners and for a longer period of time before and after funeral events than current law. Violations would result in a higher grade misdemeanor and a felony on a second offense. The Senate passed the bill unanimously, two weeks after the House did by a similar margin.

Based in Topeka, Kan., the Westboro church is not affiliated with the Baptist denomination or any other Baptist church. According to news reports, almost all of its members — fewer than 100 — are related to founder Fred Phelps either by blood or marriage. The group first came into the national spotlight in 1998, when it picketed at the funeral of Matthew Shepard, a 21-year-old gay man who was brutally attacked on the night of October 6, 1998, then tied to a fence and left to die.

The bill now heads to Gov. Pat McCrory for his signature.

Shirley Phelps-Roper, Westboro Baptist Church Mouthpiece, Responds To Daughters' Defections

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Shirley Phelps-Roper, daughter of the Westboro Baptist Church founder, has responded to news that her daughters have defected from the hate-mongering, quasi-religious organization. She said on Thursday that “the New Testament is full of people that started right, but then fell away.” Jeremy Hooper from Good As You, a gay rights blog, reached out to Phelps-Roper for a comment about her daughters Megan and Grace defecting from the Westboro Baptist Church this week. Megan and Grace announced their decision Wednesday in an online statement, in which they expressed regret for hurting so many people.

Phelps-Roper responded to the defection in a scripture-riddled statement on Thursday. Her statement to Good as You read, in part:

We have no say on who is appointed to mercy and no say on who is appointed to wrath. All I have is a lively hope, and an urgency every day to seek tokens that my own calling in election is sure. You see my young, rebellious friend, I am no different than any other human in that I am full of sin and without a single merit of my own. BUT, if God would have mercy upon me, I have everything. It is all I care about, and all that I live for. There is nothing in this life worth having or doing except to serve my King, and to pray that his will be done and to ask that I be MADE and FOUND worthy to escape the affliction that is coming on the whole earth and that I be made and found worthy to stand before my Lord.

Megan and Grace are not the only two Phelps children to leave Westboro. Most notable, Shirley’s son Josh left in 2003, and Libby Phelps Alvarez, another grandchild of founder Fred Phelps, left in 2009. Fred Phelphs’ son Nate, now in his 50s, departed the organization when he was 18 years old. Still, dozens of family members maintain ties with the WBC. The group spawns hate and controversy by protesting funerals of military officials, shooting victims and entertainers. The group permeated the mainstream media in 1998, when members picketed the funeral of Matthew Shepard, a Wyoming man who was murdered because he was gay, notes NPR.

“Our job is laid out,” Phelps-Roper told NPR last year. “We are supposed to blind their eyes, stop up their ears and harden their hearts so that they cannot see, hear or understand, and be converted and receive salvation.”

Fred Phelps, now 83, is a former civil rights lawyer (he was disbarred in 1979, according to Kansas newspaper Tulsa World) and has dedicated himself to Westboro Baptist Church, which is congregated by members of his extensive family — 13 children, 56 grandchildren and nine great-grandchildren. They all live together on or near a compound in Topeka. Fred explained the WBC’s mission to Tulsa World, saying,

“The homosexuals have taken over this country, lock, stock and barrel, and I’m preaching about it because of Leviticus 18:22: ‘Thou shalt not lie with mankind as with womankind. It is abomination.’… Twelve little words that would fix this miserable, doomed country.” Adding, “And that’s my job, to preach it. The preachers in this country used to all preach it just like I preach it… I’m getting very lonely now, because they’ve disappeared.”

Most cannot understand the motives behind such vitriolic messages. A petition on the White House’s open online petition forum, We The People, currently has over 334,000 signatures demanding the government classify Westboro as a hate group.

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How Two Phelps Family Members Become 'Betrayers'

tw: gay slurs, racism, heterosexism, WBC

Two of the Westboro Baptist Church family members have left and issued an apology for what they’d done.

BY LUCAS GRINDLEY

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Megan and Grace

Everything that Megan Phelps-Roper was taught to believe as part of the family running the Westboro Baptist Church began to unravel because of a thoughtful comment made by an outsider. 
In an interview with author Jeff Chu, Phelps-Roper recounts how a point made to her by Jewliciousblogger David Abitbol struck with the fierceness of epiphany, and then it gave birth to more and more questions about what she’d been taught to believe, as a granddaughter to the infamous Fred Phelps.

“One day, he asked a specific question about one of our signs — ‘Death Penalty for Fags’ — and I was arguing for the church’s position, that it was a Levitical punishment and as completely appropriate now as it was then,” she told Chu of the conversation. “He said, ‘But Jesus said’ — and I thought it was funny he was quoting Jesus — ‘Let he who is without sin cast the first stone.’ And then he connected it to another member of the church who had done something that, according to the Old Testament, was also punishable by death. I realized that if the death penalty was instituted for any sin, you completely cut off the opportunity to repent. And that’s what Jesus was talking about.”

Phelps Roper and her sister Grace say they left the church in November and are now considered “betrayers” by their family. They issued a lengthy statement Wednesday, headlined “Head Full of Doubt / Road Full of Promise,” to the world apologizing for what they had done.

“We know that we’ve done and said things that hurt people,” they wrote. “Inflicting pain on others wasn’t the goal, but it was one of the outcomes. We wish it weren’t so, and regret that hurt.”

They’re clearly worried about adding hurt to what’s already been done, but this time to their family. Still, they are pressing on, trying new things, like sushi, and attending a church that doesn’t require women to cover their heads.

“We know that we can’t undo our whole lives,” they wrote. “We can’t even say we’d want to if we could; we are who we are because of all the experiences that brought us to this point. What we can do is try to find a better way to live from here on.”

Don’t assume too much, though. The two aren’t now saying that being gay isn’t a sin. But they appear sure that Westboro was wrong in saying gay people should be killed or can’t be forgiven. And more revelations, of a kind, could be coming, because Megan Phelps-Roper told Chu, “I don’t feel confident at all in my beliefs about God. That’s definitely scary. But I don’t believe anymore that God hates almost all of mankind.”

HuffingtonPost: Americans Who Believe Homosexuality Is A Sin Decreases Significantly: LifeWay Research Poll

Interestingly, respondents who did not believe homosexuality was a sin increased by a mere two percent, while a greater number of those surveyed said they were now unsure of what they believe.

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ACTION ALERT! Strip anti-gay Westboro Baptists of tax-exempt status, calls petition

 BY MATTHEW JENKIN
Counter protesters kiss in front of a Westboro Baptist Church picket line
Photo by Paul M Walsh

Campaigners are calling on the US government to strip the anti-gay Westboro Baptist Church of its tax-exempt status.

The Westboro Baptists threatened to picket memorial services for victims of the Sandy Hook Elementary shooting, which they claim was God’s punishment for the state of Connecticut legalizing same-sex marriage.

Despite failing to show, the extremist Christians have vowed to continue their hateful protests.

A petition has now been launched calling on the White House to remove their right to tax exemption, claiming the group is a charity ‘known only for hate’. Over 50,000 people have already signed the appeal which also claims the church is used as a ‘tax shelter’ for its family’s law business.

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WESTBORO ANNOUNCES PLANS TO PICKET NEWTOWN SCHOOL SHOOTING FUNERALS AND IS HACKED BY ANONYMOUS

BY: JASE PEEPLES

(TW: gun violence, anti-gay hate speech, anti-gay slurs)

When the Westboro Baptist Church announced it would picket the funerals of the children who were murdered at the Sandy Hook elementary school in Newtown, Connecticut last week, the hate group not only sparked worldwide outrage, they were also immediately targeted by the hacking collective known as Anonymous.

Shortly after the announcement, the ‘God Hates Fags’ church found its website attacked by the hackers who began to post the personal contact details of the hate group’s main organizers. The church claims the children were murdered as a punishment from God for the recent advances in LGBT equality.

According to Pink News:
Shirley Phelps-Roper, the attorney daughter of the church’s founder Fred Phelps Tweeted: “Westboro will picket Sandy Hook Elementary School to sing praise to God for the glory of his work in executing his judgment.”

After Anonymous posted her telephone number on Twitter, she Tweeted that if you contact her or other church members: “We’ll tell you those kids died for fag marriage.”

Another church member Tweeted” “God Almighty smacked USA with #Sandy & she’s brazen in her sin still; THEN He gives you a right hook – make that #SandyHook! #RepentingYet??”

The church’s founder Fred Phelps Tweeted “That’s the message that this evil nation and world need: that God Almighty is on the march & nothing is gonna stop Him.”

His son Fred Phelps junior Tweeted: “Beautiful work of an angry God who told Wisconsin to keep their filthy hands off his people (WBC)!”

At a moment like this we can’t help wondering when wilful hate speech directed at a group of people stops being free speech and results in disciplinary action. Our thoughts and hearts go out to the families whose loss is being targeted by this hate group.

Billy Graham Not Antigay Enough for Fred Phelps

BY Lucas Grindley

Counter-protesters from Asheville

It’s always difficult to comprehend the motives of the Westboro Baptist Church congregation, which this time traveled to North Carolina to protest the Reverend Billy Graham for not opposing homosexuality.

Of course, Graham has done just that, and in prominent fashion in a series of full-page ads.

But Westboro and its members have a long record of confounding protest choices, including their demonstrations at soldiers’ funerals, or when they used an iPhone to announce plans to protest Steve Jobs’s funeral. Then there was the puzzling photo of a Phelps protester proudly wearing a Glee T-shirt. The list goes on. More important is the reaction to the Phelps crew this time around.

The Billy Graham Evangelistic Association is notorious in North Carolina for taking out a series of full-page ads in newspapers condemning same-sex marriage just before the state voted on a constitutional ban.

“At 93, I never thought we would have to debate the definition of marriage,” Graham wrote in the advertisement. “The Bible is clear — God’s definition of marriage is between a man and a woman. I want to urge my fellow North Carolinians to vote FOR the marriage amendment on Tuesday, May 8.”

Nonetheless, WBTV reports that the Graham association emailed a statement distancing itself from the Westboro protesters stationed outside its library in Charlotte, its training center in Asheville, and Graham’s home in Montreat. The statement took the opportunity to reiterate Graham’s worry for the country about same-sex marriage.

“Watching the moral decline of our country causes me great concern,” the evangelist said, according to WBTV. “I believe the home and marriage is the foundation of our society and must be protected.”

The Graham association went on to describe the evangelist’s message as one of “love for all people.”

The Asheville Citizen-Times reports that counterprotesters who favored LGBT rights traveled to meet the Westboro clan and outnumbered them. The reaction again brought one of those inexplicable Phelpsian moments. As the counterprotesters held signs proclaiming “All You Need Is Love,” the Phelps church members reportedly serenaded them with “Crazy Train” — a song by Ozzy Osbourne.

So you know that post going around of a Westboro Baptist Protester wearing a Glee shirt?

pompadoursandpincurls:

and everyone’s like OMGZ WE CAUGHT YOU, YOU HYPOCRITE.

But I can’t help but think

Watching Glee does not by any means make you a social justice activist or mean that you’re not a queer/trans-hating asshole. 

That show is pretty fucking offensive sometimes and often perpetuates stereotypes/racism/sexism/cissexism/heterosexism/normativity (and this is coming from someone who watches it).

I’m just sayin.

(via tranqualizer)