The World’s Biggest Haters Strike Again

The families in Arizona have suffered quite a bit. But one group wants to make them suffer just a little bit more:

Westboro Baptist Church, the church of hate that pickets funerals to highlight its vile attacks, will picket the funeral of the little girl and five others who were killed in Saturday’s shooting rampage.

Fred Phelps, in an offensive press release you may not want to read in full, announced Sunday he will bring his tiny band of followers, fresh from last month’s Elizabeth Edwards funeral, to this wounded city because, “That’s how God the avenger rolls,” he says.

The good news: Citizens in the community are banding together to stand against this clown:

Tucson, said Gilmer — who said two of the six people killed were friends — is a “caring, loving, peaceful community.”

“For something like this to happen in Tucson was a really big shock to us all,” she said. “Our nightmare happened when we saw Westboro Baptist Church was going to picket the funerals.”

They’re planning an “angel action” — with 8-by-10-foot “angel wings” worn by participants and used to shield mourners from picketers. The actions were created by Coloradan Romaine Patterson, who was shocked to find the Topeka church and its neon signs outside the 1999 funeral of Matthew Shepherd, a young gay man beaten and left on a fence to die in Laramie, Wyoming.

“We want to surround them, in a non-violent way, to say that our community is united,” Gilmer said. “We’re a peaceful haven…”

But political persuasions don’t matter, she said. Republicans, Democrats, independents, right, left and center — they’ve all offered their support. Forty-two people have signed up on a Facebook page called “Build Angel Wings for the Westboro Funeral Counter-Protest and Meeting” and more than 4,500 have signed up on another page to “Show Support for the Families of the Tucson Shooting Victims.”

I wish the folks in Tucson well standing against this hatemonger and false Christian/fake pastor. There have been several such efforts to combat the virtriol of the Phelps clan.

The only bright side with people coming together to protest is that it may cause us to realize that whatever our differences, our mainstream political opponents are decent human beings, unlike the Phelps people.

Read more at Adam’s Blog