Posted on 10/29/2003 5:07:11 AM PST by CSM
CASPER, Wyo., Oct. 28 — Five years after University of Wyoming student Matthew Shepard was killed, touching off a national dialogue on gay rights, an anti-gay hate group wants to put up a monument to Shepard’s murder in hiss hometown. The city doesn’t want it, but it is caught in a legal tangle that involves, of all things, the Ten Commandments.
AT SHEPARD’S FUNERAL in his hometown of Casper, Wyo., an anti-gay hate group demonstrated in a park across the street, led by the Rev. Fred Phelps, a Baptist minister from Kansas.
Now members of Phelps’ group are back in Casper pushing to be allowed to put up a granite monument in the same park where they picketed at Shepard’s funeral.
The proposed monument would say, “Matthew Shepard entered Hell, October 12, 1998.”
That was the day that Shepard, 21, died of injuries and hypothermia he suffered five days before when two men beat him with a gun butt and left him to die while tied to a fence post in zero-degree weather, after meeting him at a bar in Laramie. Both of the men were later convicted.
‘GOD’S HATE, NOT HUMAN HATE’
“Our message is a message of God’s hate, not human hate,” said Marge Phelps, the reverend’s wife, also of the Westboro, Kan., Baptist Church. “And the concept of God’s hate is found in the Bible. And all it means is that people are going to go to hell if they disobey God.”
The city of Casper, home to about 50,000 residents, wants to say no but may not be able to.
The city park where the anti-gay group wants to put the Shepard monument already has a monument, this one honoring the Ten Commandments from the Bible. And under the law, if the city wants to keep this Shepard monument out, then the Ten Commandments will have to go, too.
Why? Because, legal experts say, the city unwittingly invited other monuments when it put up the Ten Commandments in a public park.
“By putting the Ten Commandments in the park, they created a sort of public forum for speech and debate,” said Tom Goldstein, a First Amendment attorney and appellate court lawyer. “And once the city does that, it can’t discriminate against other viewpoints, no matter how hateful.”
MAYOR OFFENDED BY ‘FILTH’
‘The fact that Reverend Phelps ... would come into Casper and try and put that filth under the guise of the Ten Commandments is total idiocy.’ — BARB PERYAM mayor of Casper, Wyo.
Casper Mayor Barb Peryam said she was offended by the Kansas group’s tactic. “The fact that Reverend Phelps, or Mr. Phelps, would come into Casper and try and put that filth under the guise of the Ten Commandments is total idiocy.”
Bob Crosby, president of the local Eagles Club, which donated the Ten Commandments, said the Eagles reluctantly offered the city a way out: “We would hope they would donate it back to us, and we can display it in an appropriate place.”
Now the city council must decide what to do about this monument, concerned that the Ten Commandments could be used to force the city into accepting a message of hate.
Geez. How'd you like this Phelps person living in your neighborhood?
BTW, do we even need to excerpt NBC articles?
THEY advertise themselves as such, or the media?
Probably because there's no adultering case out there that has media backing to the extent of the Shepard caes. My point is that by the media calling them an anti-gay group, which they obviously are, they get a specific group enraged.
They are more than an anti-gay group, do you really think there views, which I choose to call hate, are limited solely to gays? If NOT,then WHY are they simply/only called an anti-gay group?
I like how the article gently equates anti-gay with hate.
Cat, I didn't say they JUST offended a specific group. What I was trying to get across was that by the media calling them an anti-gay group, and ONLY (as far as I have seen) an anti-gay group, that in & of itself is meant to enrage, offend, etc. THAT specific group of people.
WHOA! Hold on there, ISC....I am with you on that 100%. I don't think my posts even mentioned that aspect of the story.
Because they call themselves, "God Hates Fags".
They don't call themselves that, it's just what their ignorant minds believe, and what their signs espouse.
Yes, it was rhetorical ;-) Guy sounds like somebody I would really not like to know.
Their website is "God Hates Fags." I'm not going to put up a link, but google that, go to their website, read what they say, download a couple of their posters (in PDF format), view their signs from their pickets.
And then go over to their other website and see how they say that the sodomites are to blame for 9/11.
Ahhhh... I never knew that God "Hated"... Maybe it's an Old Testament thingie... anyway... Seems to me, the more I keep wondering if Rev. Phelps is a dupe for the Left. HE seems to do more for THEIR cause, than anything...
Sounds like Mr. Phelps likes to be judge, jury, and wishes he could be the executioner. With his attitude and deeds, Phelps may be Judged harshly when he appears before the true Judge.
Somehow, when it comes to the Fred Phelps of the world, the words "false prophets" keeps popping in my head.
I'm guessing it's a self-imposed title...
“Our message is a message of God’s hate, not human hate,” said Marge Phelps, the reverend’s wife
I couldn't agree more.
Five years after University of Wyoming student Matthew Shepard was killed, touching off a national dialogue on gay rights, the Westboro Baptist Church of Topeka, Kansas, an anti-gay hate group wants to put up a monument to Shepard’s murder in his hometown. The city doesn’t want it, but it is caught in a legal tangle that involves, of all things, the Ten Commandments.
AT SHEPARD’S FUNERAL in his hometown of Casper, Wyo., Westboro Baptist Church members demonstrated in a park across the street, led by the Rev. Fred Phelps.
Sounds a little different doesn't it? Instead of sounding like a large hate group, it sounds like a kooky little church in Kansas. The media knows how they made it sound and they did it purposefully.
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