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The Westboro Baptist Church believes that God is punishing the United States because of America’s acceptance of homosexuality and has gained infamy for picketing the funerals of public figures and military members.Westboro is going to get their asses beat... I wish I could be there to see it.
“God gave Whitney Houston a beautiful singing voice and a world-wide platform, which she should have used to encourage obedience to His Word and warn the wicked that their rebellion brings destruction from the hand of God,” the church said.
The website of the Topeka, Kansas-based church said the fringe group will demonstrate at Ford's funerals because she divorced her first husband William Warren prior to marrying the late president Gerald R. Ford.They are not going satisfied until somebody gets hurt. It's only a matter of time.
In Westboro's eyes, that makes Ford an adulterer who "loved to sit with tawdry reporters and blather about sex."
The group plans to picket at services at Saint Margaret Episcopal Church in Palm Desert, Calif. on Tuesday (July 12) and at Grace Episcopal Church in East Grand Rapids on Thursday when her casket will travel by motorcade for burial at the Ford Museum.
About 10 members of a group that claims to be a branch of the Ku Klux Klan from Virginia called the Knights of the Southern Cross. They were cordoned off separately in a nearby area, but drew little attention as they gave out small American flags behind a banner that read "POW-MIA."
They said they were there to object to the Westboro Baptist Church's anti-troop message.
"It's the soldier that fought and died and gave them that right to free speech," said Dennis LaBonte, the self-described "Imperial Wizard" of the KKK group that he said he formed several years ago.
"That's fine," said Abigail Phelps, the daughter of Westboro Baptist Church founder Fred Phelps. "They have no moral authority on anything.
"People like them say it's white power ... white supremacy," Phelps said. "The Bible doesn't say anywhere that it's an abomination to be born of a certain gender or race."
LaBonte insisted he is not a racist nor a "hate-monger," but said he believes the white race is "slowly and most assuredly being denigrated."
A Kansas church that attracted nationwide attention for its angry, anti-gay protests at the funerals of U.S. military members has won its appeal at the Supreme Court, an issue testing the competing constitutional limits of free speech and privacy.Okay, so I have the right to throw eggs and hot water on them too. I'm just voicing my broad-based message.
The justices by a 8-1 vote on Wednesday said members of the Westboro Baptist Church had a right to promote what they call a broad-based message on public matters such as wars.
The father of a fallen Marine had sued the small church, saying those protests amounted to targeted harassment and an intentional infliction of emotional distress.
"Speech is powerful. It can stir people to action, move them to tears of both joy and sorrow, and– as it did here– inflict great pain," Chief Justice John Roberts wrote. "On the facts before us, we cannot react to that pain by punishing the speaker."
The fiercely antigay Westboro Baptist Church may be planning a protest outside Midland High School in Arkansas, following the resignation of the school board's homophobic vice president.
According to the the Cotton Club blog, members of the Topeka, Kan.–based family church plan to descend on Pleasant Plains, Ark., on Wednesday, ostensibly because Midland board member Clint McCance was forced from his job last week.
