When I first learned of "Reverend" Fred Phelps and his Kansas-based Westboro Baptist Church, I thought that their website, godhatesfags.com, was satirical, like The Onion. But, sadly, it's for real.
Phelps and his followers travel the country picketing any public or private event that they think represents gay culture or its effects. They even picket soldiers' funerals because they believe that the war in Iraq is a punishment from God for America's tolerance of homosexuality. Yes, really!
And now they'll be bringing their hate to Philadelphia on Thursday, April 1st, to picket productions at Temple University of RENT and The Laramie Project. RENT is a show about the lives of a group of friends in New York's East Village in the 1980s, some of whom are gay/lesbian and some of whom are HIV-positive. The Laramie Project is about the 1998 murder of gay student Matthew Shepard in Laramie, Wyoming.
This is not their first visit to the City of Brotherly Love. A few years ago, I was walking through the Sunday Out festival which wraps up the annual week-long Equality Forum here in Philly each spring. My local Amnesty International group had an information table there promoting human rights for LGBT persons. By contrast, Phelps and his team set up shop on a street corner in the midst of the festivities and Phelps used a loudspeaker to spew his biblical misinterpretations. Unable to resist, I walked up to Phelps and asked, "Sir, didn't your Jesus say, 'Judge not, lest ye be judged'?" He paused for a moment and then just started spewing more pseudo-religious nonsense. I guess it's easiest to change the subject if you have no real answer.
So I have a feeling I know who the April fools will be this April 1st at Temple U.
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