Westboro Baptist Church set to make unwelcome appearance at Arizona funerals

TUSCON, Ariz. (ABP) -- Arizonans are up in arms over plans by
Westboro Baptist Church to picket the funerals of six people gunned down
in Tuscon Jan. 8.

Westboro Baptist Church in Topeka, Kan., a
small independent congregation notorious for showing up at military and
celebrity funerals with inflammatory signs including "God hates fags," announced
in a flier Jan. 8 plans to protest this week at the funerals of victims
killed in an assassination attempt of a congresswoman at a town hall
meeting outside a grocery store.

The flier
said the 18 people shot by suspect Jared Lee Laughner -- including
critically injured Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords and slain federal
judge John Roll -- were God's judgment on America's sins.

Arizona lawmakers rushed
to pass emergency legislation to keep Westboro protestors away from the
funerals, including one of a 9-year-old girl, while local groups
organized to shield picketers from the mourners' view by wearing 8-by-10
foot "angel wings."

Starting with a 1991 demonstration at a Topeka park known to be
frequented by gays, church members, mostly extended-family members of
founding Pastor Fred Phelps, have held thousands of peaceful protests
against homosexuality.

The group gained national prominence in
1998 when it picketed the funeral of Matthew Shepard, a gay University
of Wyoming student whose murder brought national attention to the issue
of hate crimes.

Westboro Baptist Church went largely unnoticed by the general public as members picketed events like performances of The Laramie Project, a play based on Shepard's life, and meetings of religious groups including the Southern Baptist Convention.

That changed in 2005, when church members started showing up at
funerals of fallen American soldiers and proclaiming that casualties in
Iraq and Afghanistan are the result of God's wrath against America for
tolerating homosexuality. A number of states responded with laws
regulating protests near funerals.

Recent protests included the funeral
of Elizabeth Edwards, the estranged wife of former presidential
candidate John Edwards, who died in December from cancer. Other targets
of protests have included entertainer Lady Gaga, television preacher
Jerry Falwell and even Santa Claus.

Phelps, a disbarred lawyer who briefly attended Bob Jones University,
has led Westboro Baptist Church since 1955. Phelps was ordained as a
Southern Baptist minister in 1947, but the church isn't affiliated with
any religious denomination.

While it is routinely labeled a hate group, the congregation calls its protests "love crusades."

They view the notion popular among Christians of "hating the sin while
loving the sinner" as a lie, turning to Bible verses like Psalm 5:5,
"The Lord will abhor the bloody and deceitful man."A 94-page PDF file on the God Hates Fags website lists 701 passages intended to prove "God's hate and wrath for most of mankind."

Embracing a strict Calvinism, they read "for God so loved the world" in
John 3:16 as referring only to the "elect," those with the capacity to
believe.

While most people regard "fag" an offensive term,
Westboro members use it as a contraction of the word "faggot," which
means a firebrand used for kindling and is a metaphor for homosexuality
fueling the wrath of God.

Asked about why they show up at
public events that have nothing to do with homosexuality, they say they
need to be "timely" and "topical" in order to get their unpopular
message across.

In October the church argued before the U.S.
Supreme Court that their protests are protected by the First Amendment. A
ruling is expected this summer.