Posted on 01/07/2006 6:19:53 AM PST by ricardobaltazar
In a phone interview today, Shirley Phelps-Roper informed this reporter that a group of approximately 15 people will be coming to Buckhannon to picket at the memorial service on Sunday, January 15. They will be picketing between 1:15 to 2 p.m.Their website will soon be updated to reflect this, according to Phelps-Roper. The group will also be sending notices to law enforcement agencies to announce their plans, she added.
Note: This article was written late last night after receiving a tip about this release. An editorial decision was made to put it in the paper to alert the area to what to expect. The website was included in the article so that readers could better understand what this group was and what their beliefs were.
A hate group based in Topeka, Kan. released a press release on Wednesday entitled “Thank God for 12 dead miners” and promises to picket the funerals for the slain men.
The hate group, which operates as Westboro Baptist Church, runs the website www.godhatesfags.com.
The release states, “God is laughing, mocking and deriding hypocritical fag-infested West Virginia.” The release also says the WBC will picket the funerals of the miners.
When reached by phone, member Shirley Phelps-Roper confirmed that 10 to 15 picketers were making plans to protest at the funerals of the West Virginia miners.
When asked why the group was planning protests at the miners’ funerals, she responded with questions of her own.
According to the press release, “They died in shame and disgrace, citizens of a cursed nation of unthankful, unholy perverts who have departed from the living God to worship on ‘Brokeback Mountain’ and who have replaced the Bible with ‘The Da Vinci Code.’”
The group has picketed at 80 funerals since June, as many as four to five a week, according to Phelps-Roper. Most of these funerals have been for soldiers.
“Our purpose is to cause America to know our abomination,” she said.
God is punishing America, according to Phelps-Roper. “America is doomed,” she said. “We have cracked the Bible. We know.”
During the phone interview, Phelps-Roper told this reporter to read all of Malachi (an Old Testament book).
“It covers all of the issues,” she said.
Westboro Baptist Church was established by Pastor Fred Phelps in 1955 as a Primitive Baptist Church, according to the website. It engages in daily peaceful sidewalk demonstrations “opposing the homosexual lifestyle of soul-damning, nation-destroying filth.”
The WBC has conducted more than 22,000 such demonstrations since June 1991 at homosexual parades and other events, according to the website.
When informed about the expected protests, Sgt. Chris Smith, detachment commander of the Buckhannon detachment of the W.Va. State Police, said protection would be provided as needed.
Smith could not immediately say how far back the protesters would be located.
Buckhannon Police Chief Matt Gregory and Sheriff Virgil Miller could not be reached on Thursday evening as this story was developing.
Several local ministers that were present with the families were reached on Thursday evening and shared their reactions.
Rev. Mark Flynn of First United Methodist Church said, “I have met members of the families of most of the miners. I shared scripture passages with several of them. I found them to be people of faith, as are most of the residents of West Virginia.
This mine disaster was not God’s judgement on West Virginia. “God was with those men in that mine before their deaths,” Flynn said.
Flynn quoted from Romans 8: “Not even death can separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.”
He also commented on the group itself, saying, “For anyone who is expressing any opinion on any issue to compound the grief of these fine families is cruel and is bound to be counter-productive.”
Pastor Ed Lowther, of South Buckhannon Mission Church, commented that the verses quoted on the press release were taken out of context.
God is a compassionate God, and John 3:16 in the Bible is a testimony to that fact, according to Lowther.
The verses in the press release are “describing what they (WBC) are,” Lowther said.
“They are not talking about the God we serve,” he said.
“We need to pray for them ... they have no compassion for anyone,” Lowther added.
Rev. William Mooring of New Life Tabernacle cited the example in John 8:3-11 of the Pharisees bringing a woman accused of adultery before Jesus.
Jesus responded, “If any of you is without sin, let him be the first to throw a stone at her.” (John 8:7, NIV)
Jesus also told the woman, “Go and sin no more.”
“We live in the age of grace,” Mooring said.
Jesus did not come to condemn. Mooring added that the miners were a “good group of hardworking West Virginia men.”
God does not bring the judgement as this group proclaims, according to Mooring.
“Judgement’s going to come (to everyone) — but not now,” he said.
they're continually twisted in not only their beliefs, but actions.
Most people who see them take them for the kooks they are. The only people who don't see them as being ridiculous are their fellow demonstrators.
Please: NO profanity or violence in posts.
I have nothing to say.
This demonstrates once again why blind belief systems must be tempered by the intellect and God-given good old common sense.
I venture to say, mr phelps is going to have a rude awakening some day. In the scheme of things, homosexuality, is just one of a long list of things that might be soul damaging, and nation destroying. Why he feels the need to focus on the one and leave out the others remains a question in my mind that I don't spend a lot of time worrying about.
Exactly. Where do they get their funds?
I've long wondered if he's really a closet queen in complete denial. Most straight people wouldn't spend so much time and energy worrying about gays, no matter how much they didn't like the lifestyle.
Phelps is a freak.
LQ
Do these clowns have no shame?
I dont think I would mess around with West Virginia coal miners. Coal Miners are not people to toy with and screwing around with people who are already angry and grief stricken isnt a really smart thing to do.
In fact kicking the crap out of people who would mock a funeral for coal miners killed trying to earn a hard living is something I wouldnt mind being a part of myself.
That is if I were prone to that type of violence.
They're too stupid to have any shame.
In my mind, there is nothing more unsensitive, base and outright cruel than protesting a funeral.
Somebody on another thread about this headcase said that they have lawyers and video people that accompany them. The start an inflammatory ruckus, get beaten up, then sue the jurisdiction for failing to protect them in exercising their First Amendment rights. If true, they get a few mil a pop.
Did Albert Arnold Gore, Jr., ever disavow the support that the Reverend Phelps gave to him over the years?
I can never tell who is more stupid, Phelps or Pat Robertson. Well ok Phelps. He doesn't have a tv show that brings in bazillions. So maybe who is seen as more stupid in the eyes of the Lord.
Then there will be criminal charges. A West Virginia jury in Sago, for instance, will acquit on the basis of the never-argued but sometimes-applicable defense, "He had it coming." And that sequence of events would amount to justice in a rough sense.
Congressman Billybob
Latest column: "A Tale of Three Scandals: Abramoff, Sharpton, and Clinton"
I wonder if on that day every WV policman, sheriff/sheriff's deputy, state trooper just mught have a sudden and incapacitating case of "Blue FLU" as the UMW members warmly greet the LOONS.
Powder..Patch..Ball FIRE!
They are travelling into an unknown. Virginia coal miners are not the most PC bunch of people. They may have bitten off more than they can chew if they think they will get away from that area unscathed....
Some of those people with their cameras might look a little funny with em hanging out of their rear ends.
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