Written on Wednesday, February 18th, 2009 at 6:39am by Alan Bedenko | 54 Comments

The Westboro Baptist Monsters (UPDATED)

UPDATE: If you arrived at this post via link from another site, please go here. The designated protest area is far enough away from the Zion Lutheran Church that there is a way for attendees to come without ever seeing or hearing the Phelps monsters.

UPDATE: I spoke with town officials this morning and have concluded based on that conversation that, at least as far as the Clarence memorial is concerned, we want to avoid a circus from developing anywhere near the Zion Lutheran Church in Clarence Center.

I don’t know the answer as to permitting, but reasonable time, place, and manner restrictions on demonstrations pass constitutional muster and are being looked at. If the Westboro Baptist imbeciles are required to limit their demonstration to the soccer fields at Clarence Center & Kraus, and required to use G-rated language on their pickets, that’d be swell. As long as they’re nowhere near Zion Lutheran, that, too, would be swell.

As despicable as Westboro Baptist is, it does not serve the interests of the community or respect the mourners and victims to have a confrontation within eye or earshot. But if they’re shunted to some remote area of the town, nowhere near the church, then I’d be down for standing before them, protesting their hatred, and standing for the victims, for the town, and for my neighbors.

Syracuse.com reported, via WNYMedia.net:

Buffalo, NY — Members of Westboro Baptist Church in Topeka, Kan., who are known for picketing the funerals of U.S. troops, are planing to protest two memorial services planned for the victims of Flight 3407, the commuter plane that crashed near Buffalo.

The group plans to picket a morning community prayer service at the Zion Lutheran Church in Clarence Center, and an afternoon memorial service for Alison Des Forges at St. Joseph’s Catholic Church in Buffalo. Both services are scheduled to take place Sunday.

Westboro Baptist Church is known for its anti-gay message and its picketing of funerals for members of the armed services killed in Iraq and Afghanistan. The controversial church says God is punishing America because of what church members consider the nation’s permissive attitude toward gays and lesbians.

This Sunday, these sick, horrific people whose stock in trade is to terrorize the grieving, expect to disrupt memorial services for the victims of flight 3407? If 10 of these animals show up, we should have 100 people there to make sure that their signs cannot be seen and their yells cannot be heard. I don’t want these people in WNY. I especially don’t want these people in Buffalo or Clarence Center.

Then again, that just gives them the attention they want.

On Sunday at 10am, they’ll be at the Zion Lutheran Church in Clarence Center, 2 blocks from the crash site.

On Sunday at 1:45, they’ll be at St. Joseph’s Church at 3275 Main Street in Buffalo near UB South campus.

The “God hates Fags” people – do we ignore them? Do we counterprotest and shout them down? Do we just set up a respectful cordon so that they cannot be seen or heard by memorial attendees?

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54 Comments

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  1. jacki says:
    February 23, 2009 at 5:57 am

    isn’t that woman in the pic. considered a crime, it’s racial & it’s a hate crime. it would be in az.

  2. Lady Donna Royce says:
    February 24, 2009 at 2:15 am

    Look people. I have been tracking these fools on the net since May of 98 and from what I have seen, NOTHING works to shut them up! You can surround them with all the Angel Wings, Posters, Murals, Flags, Trailers, Motorcycles, 18 wheel trucks you want and make all the noise you want to drown them out and IT DOES NOT WORK anymore then ignoring them does!

    I dearly love what the Patriot Guard Riders do and I respect the entire ruddy lot of them! BUT! Even their good work does NOTHING to stop these monsters from showing up where THEY ARE NOT WANTED and standing there with their DISGUSTING signs and deliberately insulting everyone around them in the hopes of trying to start a fight with the locals!
    Once they get the fight started, they have their people standing there with video and still cameras shooting the entire thing and then hauling the ones that they insulted into court and suing them for every dime they can get! This is how that bunch of freaks makes their extra money to keep going around the country like they do to spread their HATE!

    To my way of thinking, the ONLY way any town is going to get the message that they are NOT welcome there through their THICK, BONE HEADS is to let them show up and then have a large group show up and PEACEFULLY RUN THEM OUT OF TOWN!
    The people of any town has the right to say who does and does not belong in their town and take PEACEFUL action to make it known to the offending group that THEY ARE NOT WANTED THERE!

    Get about 100 to 200 people together and have your own video and still cameras operating for your own protection, walk up to them, take their DISGUSTING signs away from them GENTLY and start GENTLY pushing them back towards the vehicle they showed up in. Get them loaded in the back of it and two of you drive (One keeping a video camera running at all times.) said vehicle to the town’s border with the others following you with video cameras running.
    Keeping the cameras running. Get out of said vehicle and point them the way out of town and say THE AIRPORT IN THE NEXT TOWN IS THAT WAY! DO NOT EVER SHOW YOUR FACES IN OUR TOWN AGAIN! YOU ARE NOT WELCOME HERE! If they show up again after that. You arrest them for trespassing.

    To my way of thinking, this is one of only two ways of shutting them up. The other way is extreme. Your town, city and so on denies them a permit to picket and when they defy your town and come anyway, YOU ARREST THE LOT FOR TRESPASSING and since they ALWAYS bring their children with them and put them in danger, you have your local CPS step in and put the children in PROTECTIVE CUSTODY!
    These “things” are too inbred and stupid to get the point that they are not wanted anywhere and all the peaceful ideas are not going to work on them because all they understand anymore is HATE! So it is going to take EXTREME, PEACEFUL, LEGAL measures to stop them now!

    Lady Donna Marie Royce

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