Anti-gay Westboro Baptist Church plans area protests

By: CHRIS I. YOUNG TIMES-DISPATCH STAFF WRITER | Times-Dispatch
Published: February 26, 2010

An anti-gay church says it will demonstrate in Richmond on Tuesday, and local community groups say they plan counterdemonstrations.

Westboro Baptist Church, based in Topeka, Kan., has announced on its Web site a number of sites throughout Virginia that it plans to picket, including four in the Richmond region.

Among other things, the church makes anti-Semitic comments about Jewish students and pickets funerals of American soldiers, claiming God has killed them for defending a nation of "sodomite hypocrites."

The Westboro demonstration sites include Hermitage High School and the Weinstein JCC in Henrico County and the Virginia Holocaust Museum in Richmond. Community organizers are now mobilizing counterprotests through Facebook, blogs and phone calls.

Westboro "has a national reputation for promoting hate under the guise of being a functioning Christian church," said Simon Sibelman, assistant executive director of the Virginia Holocaust Museum. He said that representatives of the museum and the Virginia Interfaith Center for Public Policy, and others, will stand outside the museum at 2000 E. Cary St. on Tuesday at 11:45 a.m., when the Westboro Baptist Church says it will picket. About 300 people are expected so far, he said; a Westboro spokeswoman said fewer than 10 of their members will be in Richmond.

Sibelman said, "There are people of conscience, of faith, saying, 'We will not tolerate this,' even to a handful of them."

Jonathan C. Zur, president and CEO of the Virginia Center for Inclusive Communities, said several student groups at Virginia Commonwealth University are coordinating a 1:30 p.m. rally at the VCU University Student Commons outdoor plaza. "We want to give Richmonders a forum where they can affirm values of respect rather than focus on negativity," said Zur, one of the administrators of the Facebook page created for the rally.

The Facebook fan page had confirmations from nearly 90 people as of last night.

In a telephone interview, Shirley Phelps-Roper, who said she is an attorney for Westboro, called homosexuality "an abomination" and said schoolchildren are taught that "they can change their spouses and sex partners more often than they change socks."

Mychael Dickerson, spokesman for Henrico County Public Schools, said county police will have extra presence Tuesday at Hermitage High.

Contact Chris I.Young at (804) 649-6754 or cyoung@timesdispatch.com.