Hate group meets counter-protesters in Richmond

6 p.m.

About 200 counter protesters gathered outside of Hermitage High School this afternoon as the four Westboro Baptist protesters held signs and shouted chants such as "God Hates the USA." One of the four stood on an American flag.

Dozens of young counter protesters heckled the Westboro demonstrators. "You should be in school," a counter protester told the 11-year-old Westboro protester. The Westboro representatives left at 4 p.m.

3:14 p.m.

Several hundred people gathered at Virginia Commonwealth University this afternoon for a student-organized rally celebrating diversity and inclusiveness. The students were joined by faculty, staff and representatives from a variety of faith-based and community organizations in their protest against hate.

But the group was cautioned by Virginia State University professor Renee Hill not to "hate the haters" because that will only allow the corrosion to spread.

"You may think that hating someone back is showing conviction," she said. Instead, she said, it lets "them pass off their terminal attitude to you."

2:44 p.m.

At the Weinstein JCC in Henrico County, about 60 people, mostly college-age, counter-protested the visit of the anti-gay, anti-Semitic group from Kansas.

Rachel Owen, a University of Mary Washington student and graduate of Hermitage High School, drove to Richmond for the events.

She and three other Mary Washington students made signs, played music by Lady Gaga -- a gay rights supporter -- and danced in front of the Westboro protestors.

Of the Kansas group's targeting of Hermitage High School, "It just felt personal to me," she said. "What they are doing is wrong."

"it sucks to know they would intentionally target Jewish institutions," said Ali Bresenoff, a junior at Virginia Commonwealth University. "They need to know people don't agree with it."

An exchange between the two groups surged as the Westboro protesters continue to sing songs.

"You should read your bible," Shepherd Johnson, a local activist told the group. "Christ was all about love."

1:59 p.m.

Three sign-waving Westboro Baptist Church protesters were met at 12:40 p.m. by about 25 counter-protesters at The Jerusalem Connection, a Jewish cultural organization near Midlothian Turnpike and Giant Drive in South Richmond.

The Westboro protesters carried signs against Jews and gays. Police advised them to stay off private property. The protesters left a little after 1 p.m.

From earlier reports:

Between 300 and 400 counter-protesters turned out at the Virginia Holocaust Museum today to respond to a visit to Richmond by an anti-gay, anti-Semitic hate group from Kansas.

Four members of the Westboro Baptist Church, including a 11-year-old boy, stood on the corner of East Cary and South 21st streets, carrying signs, singing and chanting hate messages. The youngster held a sign that said, "God Hates Jews."

They demonstrated for about 30 minutes before heading to the second of four stops in the area, the Jerusalem Connection, a Jewish cultural organization in South Richmond. They were to also go to the Jewish Community Center and Hermitage High School.

Jay Ipson, one of the Holocaust Museum founders, sought to invite the Topeka, Kan., group members into the museum but they continued chanting and did not respond to his entreaty.

“I might have just been talking to robots that had a tape recorder inside playing back the same song,” Ipson said afterwards. “They absolutely don’t have an original thought in their mind.”

Ipson, who was pulled from a line in a concentration camp headed for execution when he was eight years old, said that the turnout of several hundred people from the community “made me feel fantastic.”

“I feel like I’m 25 feet tall, because this community is standing behind one another in love, not in hate,” he said.

While there was some heckling among the counter-protesters, Ipson and others instructed the crowd to not hold signs and make the demonstration a silent one, so as to have a unified message.

The Southern Poverty Law Center, which tracks hate groups around the country, has described the Westboro group as "the most despicable group we cover."

The group is mostly made up of the extended family of founder Fred Phelps. They also picket funerals of American soldiers, saying that God has killed them for defending a nation of "sodomite hypocrites."

One of today's picketers, Margie Phelps, said she is a church attorney and a daughter of Phelps. She identified the two other adult protesters as brother and sister. The 11-year-old boy, she said, is her nephew.

She said the group has about 70 total members. She said they are "old school Baptists" who are too ashamed to call themselves Christians, describing them as people who "fornicate and divorce and remarry at such a pace."

Faith groups, student organizations and others have banded today in counter protests.

(Times-Dispatch staff writers Reed Williams, Juan Lizama and Chris I. Young contributed to this report.)