Westboro Baptist Church Threatens To Picket Powell Boys' Funeral As Anti-Gay Protest

This undated photo provided by Chuck and Judy Cox shows Braden, left, and Charlie Powell. (AP Photo/Courtesy Chuck and Judy Cox)

The News Tribune:

A notoriously anti-gay church is threatening to picket Saturday's funeral for Charlie and Braden Powell and Occupy Seattle promises a counterprotest.

Margie Phelps, daughter of the Topeka, Kan.-based Westboro Baptist Church's founder, tweeted Wednesday night that the church will attend the boys' memorial service. The protest is to "remind" Gov. Chris Gregoire "they died because of her rebellion," a reference to her support of same-sex marriages.

Read the whole story at The News Tribune

Comments

[Kelli Schultz]

10:10 PM on 02/12/2012

What the He__ does being gay have to do with a psychopath killing his wife and kids.? Please tell me.

[lvdragonlady]

02:27 AM on 02/12/2012

They really have alot of nerve calling themselves a 'church', they are NOTHING but religious t.3.RR.0R.ISTS

[KellyRyan]

06:23 PM on 02/11/2012

The pattern for Westboro Church is to threaten to picket, derive attention from the media, gain a few more converts and cancel.

They did not picket the Powell children's funeral today.

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/nationnow/2012/02/westboro-church-cancel-protest-josh-powell-boys-funeral.html

[falsified]

12:42 PM on 02/11/2012

I generally try to assume people are decent human beings, but these people are Evil.

What happened to these boys was horrible and shame on them for making it about their political agenda.

[NWRICK]

01:02 PM on 02/11/2012

It's all about media attention so any high profile story that they can invade somehow works for them.
All they want is the attention and usually all they do is make the threat of a protest. That garners them the craved attention and they back off the threat.
This case turned out the same as so many others. They traded the protest for radio air time to spout the h8red of all who are not just like them.

[NWRICK]

11:51 AM on 02/11/2012

Westboro = Taliban West

[BRAINS4USA]

10:14 AM on 02/11/2012

I wonder if anyone can tell me the difference between these clowns of hate or those of the GOP presidential debate that bood a US soldier fighting in Iraq because he was gay (which NONE of the candidates objected to either); anyone?

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/09/22/republican-debate-dadt-repeal-rick-santorum_n_977105.html

[claytonhs]

09:08 AM on 02/11/2012

http://www.chsglobe.com/globeweb/2012/02/a-peaceful-picket-chs-responds-to-westboro-protest/

[AngryHarpy]

03:41 AM on 02/11/2012

I learned of WBC in 1995 when I saw them at the first Gay Rights rally I attended. We were boycotting Olympics venues being held in Cobb County, who had just passed an Anti-Gay law. They were there, with their signs and hate. I was 17 and what struck me most were the police on the rooftops surrounding the small square where maybe 200 of us were. I was standing up for what was right, why should there be police with large guns on rooftops?

With Matthew Shepard's murder in 1998 I wrote to every news program I could think of. I implored them to not air these people; to not give them or their message an audience. It was aired, but you know, in hindsight I think they may have helped us in a way. The world gets to see hate and what it can do to people.

Today, Americans loathe their 'church' because they choose to victimize those who are suffering; all because they hate homosexuality so much. Their own rhetoric is backfiring on them, though, I suppose they do not care, since they say 'America is Doomed' anyway.

Ah, I kind of rambled here. The Olympics never set foot in Cobb County, Georgia. Not a single venue was held there and the torch didn't even pass through the county. The protests at Matthew Shepard's funeral were aired, but I got a wonderful email from Stone Phillips in response to mine. I wish I still had it.

[crowepps]

01:59 AM on 02/11/2012

The Westboro Baptist Church, motivating hundreds of people to abandon Christianity as incompatible with morality, one funeral at a time.

[AngryHarpy]

02:57 AM on 02/11/2012

Members of the WBC are NOT Christians.

[icwhite02]

01:27 PM on 05/17/2012

Well, that's not what they say.

[Mindy Czech]

12:19 AM on 02/11/2012

How can these people live with themselves, being such horrible people? If these jerks showed up at the funeral of my love one, I wouldn't be able to be held responsible for my actions. The funerals of children are not the places to spread their hateful message.

At one of the funerals they protested (I think of a soldier), a local biker gang showed up and revved their engines in unison over and over again while they were screaming their hateful message to drown them out. We need more folks like them.

[Atwill]

05:39 AM on 02/11/2012

great. i wish they revved their engines right next to them and the exhaust clouded them in a cloud of pollution and smoke, making them choke. and if they moved. move the bike and do it agian "Varooom Varoooom."

[icwhite02]

01:39 PM on 05/17/2012

I think the local fire dept should've turned their fire hoses on them for inciting a riot.

[Pinkensteve]

12:01 AM on 02/11/2012

The Westboro chuch members are pure and simple idiots.

[JohnJames]

11:33 PM on 02/10/2012

Some of us remember how years ago Westboro got started on their road to fame - picketing at the funerals of gay men that no one but their families knew or had ever heard of. Some of us also remember how little attention it got from the media and, to the extent that anyone cared, how many people were always ready back then to defend them in the name of religious freedom. Hey! That's their right! That's what they believe about gays! Westboro has gone on to "bigger and better things" since then, but all who condemn them now might do well to recall the days when they first got started and so many were ready with a word in their defense. The cluck clucking by so many nowadays is more than a little hypocritical.

[RitaS]

11:19 PM on 02/10/2012

....Margie Phelps, daughter of the Topeka, Kan.-based Westboro Baptist Church’s founder....

This pseudo church & ALL it's people are disgusting in the extreme when it comes to human beings....

[blingbling65943]

11:07 PM on 02/10/2012

Please for the Love of  the sweet baby Jesus, stop giving this organization press. 

[TUTUTOTO]

10:50 PM on 02/10/2012

They are only doing this for publicity. This reminds me of Madonnas rise. The more she shocked the more headlines she got for corrupting the youths of the 1980's. Keep giving these idiots coverage and they will continue to protest anything that will give them a headline.