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 Phelps
Clan Pickets Falwell Funeral
by 365Gay.com Newscenter Staff
Posted: May 22, 2007 - 3:00 pm ET
(Lynchburg, Virginia) About
a half dozen members of a Kansas church that denounces
homosexuality protested Tuesday afternoon at the funeral of
evangelist Jerry Falwell.
The members of Westobo Baptist
Church carried placards accusing Falwell of being in league
with gays and of cozying up to Israel.
The church,
which operates the GodHatesFags Web site, had warned Lynchburg
police in advance they were coming.
On its site
Westboro, run by Rev. Fred Phelps, called Falwell, a
"corpulent false prophet" and said he"spent his
entire life prophesying lies and false doctrines like 'God
loves everyone.'"
In attacking
Falwell the church says he "warmly praised
Christ-rejecting Jews, pedophile-condoning Catholics,
money-grubbing compromisers, practicing fags like Mel White
(of Souflorce), and backsliders like Billy Graham and Robert
Schuler, etc."
Police set
aside a small area across from Thomas Road Baptist Church,
Falwell's church where the funeral was being conducted, for
the protestors.
A
spokesperson for the Lynchburg Police Department told
365Gay.com that members of the group "Christian
Bikers" parked in front of the area blocking the Phelps
clan from the view of mourners.
The Westboro
group left after about 45 minutes, and well before the funeral
began.
Phelps and the church first
came to national attention when he organized a protest by his
followers outside the 1998 funeral for Matthew Shepherd, the
gay college student who was beaten to death in Wyoming. The
killing, Phelps' protest, and the reaction of townsfolk led to
the play "The Laramie Project."
Church members routinely
demonstrate at the funerals of AIDS victims and most recently
at the funerals of soldiers killed in Iraq.
Falwell, who
died last week at the age of 73, was no friend to the gay
community.
Following the terrorist attacks
in New York and Washington in 2001 Falwell declared that gays
and pro choice advocates were to blame.
Speaking on the 700 Club
religious program Falwell said, "The abortionists have
got to bear some burden for this because God will not be
mocked. And when we destroy 40 million little innocent babies,
we make God mad. I really believe that the pagans, and the
abortionists, and the feminists, and the gays and the lesbians
who are actively trying to make that an alternative lifestyle,
the ACLU, People For the American Way, all of them who have
tried to secularize America. I point the finger in their face
and say 'you helped this happen'."
In 2003 Falwell announced that
he was putting aside everything to devote his time to passage
of a federal constitutional ban on gay marriage.
"I am dedicating my
talents, time and energies over the next few years to the
passage of an amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which will
protect the traditional family from its enemies who wish to
legalize same-sex marriage and other diverse
"family" forms," Falwell said.
In the 2004 election campaign
he worked with Republicans to use same-sex marriage as a wedge
issue.
A week after the November
election he announced he was organizing battle plans for what
he called an "evangelical revolution." Falwell said
that the election showed that Americans want to return to
"traditional values".
He promised to roll back gay
rights laws in communities across the country.
He also
denounced the Teletubbies TV show, calling one of the
characters gay.
Nearly 8,000
mourners attended the evangelist's funeral, but in an
indication that the onetime powerhouse of Christian
conservativism had lost his clout near the end was evidenced
by who was not there.
None of the
GOP presidential candidates attended the funeral. The
Bush White House, which at one time courted Falwell's support
sent only a midlevel aide.
©365Gay.com 2007
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