Westboro Baptist Church

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Westboro Baptist Church Gets In on Pokémon Go

With its usual offensive messages against LGBT community

(Newser) - The new Pokémon Go game that everyone's obsessing over isn't all fun and games: In Missouri, four teens were busted for using the app to lure victims they could rob , and now the Westboro Baptist Church is tapping into it to spread its own message, USA Today ...

How a Westboro Daughter Had a Change of Heart

Twitter and pop culture helped Megan Phelps-Roper leave the church

(Newser) - At one point in her 20s, Megan Phelps-Roper had become perhaps the most prominent voice of the reviled Westboro Baptist Church, thanks to Twitter. She gleefully tweeted celebrations about the death of Ted Kennedy and the like, espousing the church's volatile God-hates-gays philosophy. But as a fascinating New Yorker...

In Foo Fighters vs. Westboro, Dave Grohl Just Scored

Hint: Rickroll.

(Newser) - Picking a fight with Dave Grohl is apparently more ill-advised than previously thought , as members of the Westboro Baptist Church have again found. Back in 2011, the Foo Fighters responded to a WBC protest of their concert in Kansas City by driving by in a flatbed truck and performing "...

Westboro Protests Biden Funeral, Runs Into Trouble

Hundreds shield AG's funeral from 3 Westboro protesters

(Newser) - As President Obama eulogized Beau Biden yesterday , another tribute took place outside on the street in Wilmington, Del.: Westboro Baptist Church sent three members to protest the funeral of the vice president's son, and as the News Journal puts it, "The group was soon outnumbered about 100-to-1 by...

JK Rowling Shuts Down Homophobes (Again) on Twitter

This time it was Westboro Baptist Church protesting Gandalf/Dumbledore wedding

(Newser) - The Westboro Baptist Church protests against pretty much everyone and everything, so any shock value they may have had wore off long ago. But one person they shouldn't have set their sights on is JK Rowling, who effectively owned the anti-gay group after members started sparring with her on...

Santorum: Should Gay Printers Have to Make Westboro Signs?

He invokes 'God Hates Fags' church in RFRA debate

(Newser) - Rick Santorum has weighed in on the debate over Indiana's Religious Freedom Restoration Act using what appears to have been the most provocative comparison he could think of. "Tolerance is a two-way street," he told CBS News yesterday, arguing that businesses should have the "ability to...

Westboro to Picket Robin Williams’ Funeral

So Planting Peace is organizing a benefit for charity dear to Williams

(Newser) - Back in 1996, Robin Williams made a movie called The Birdcage, in which he played a gay father. That's apparently a little too tolerant for the folks of the Westboro Baptist Church , who the Telegraph reports have now announced plans to picket the comedian's funeral, apparently "To...

DC Principal Comes Out as Gay at School Event

Pete Cahall says his own students inspired him

(Newser) - That a principal would address his students during an annual assembly in support of gay rights isn't that unusual. That he would come out as gay during his remarks is a little more so. Such was the case this week at DC's Wilson High School, where principal Pete...

Gay Group: We Wouldn't Picket Funeral of Phelps
 No Funeral for Fred Phelps 
Mar 20, 2014 6:34 PM CDT

No Funeral for Fred Phelps

LGBT group urges people to 'rise above all the anger'

(Newser) - Given how Fred Phelps and his Westboro Baptist Church picketed funerals to spread the word that gay people were evil, one of the top gay advocates in Phelps' home state could be forgiven if he were hoping for a little payback now that Phelps is dead . No such luck. The...

Westboro's Fred Phelps Dead at 84

Son Timothy confirms the news

(Newser) - Just days after his estranged son revealed he was "on the edge of death," Fred Phelps has died. The death of the 84-year-old founder of the Westboro Baptist Church occurred shortly before midnight, son Timothy Phelps tells WIBW . Daughter Shirley Phelps-Roper confirmed that Phelps died yesterday at Midland...

Westboro Booted Phelps for Pushing 'Kinder Approach'

But he was referring to other church members, not apparently to homosexuals

(Newser) - News surfaced over the weekend that Fred Phelps, the 86-year-old founder of the notorious anti-gay Westboro Baptist Church , was not only near death but had been excommunicated from his own church. Why the latter? It's still not entirely clear, but the Topeka Capital-Journal reports that the excommunication came after...

Westboro's Fred Phelps 'on Edge of Death,' Says Son

Reportedly in hospice care

(Newser) - Fred Phelps, best known for his controversial protests at military funerals, is reportedly in hospice care and "on the edge of death" in Kansas, his estranged son says in a Facebook post. Nate Phelps also claims that the 84-year-old driving force behind the Westboro Baptist Church was ex-communicated by...

Vince Gill Confronts Westboro Protesters

Tells them they're lucky they don't have a sign referring to his wife

(Newser) - The Westboro Baptist Church decided to picket a Vince Gill concert in Kansas City, Missouri, Sunday—and ended up meeting Gill himself, the Tennessean reports. "I just came to see what hate looked like," Gill says in a video posted on YouTube . Asked by one of the demonstrators,...

Lesbian Couple Marries— 50 Feet From Westboro

Couple holds ceremony across the street from church

(Newser) - First Aaron Jackson painted his house, across the street from the Westboro Baptist Church in Topeka, in rainbow colors and called it "Equality House." Then, in case that hadn't irked the WBC enough, he and his Planting Peace nonprofit invited a lesbian couple to have a wedding...

Hundreds Shield Bombing Funeral From Westboro Protest

Westboro Baptist Church stays away from Krystle Campbell's funeral

(Newser) - As hundreds of mourners arrived at a church in Medford, Massachusetts, to pay their respects to 29-year-old Boston Marathon bombing victim Krystle Campbell , hundreds more gathered across the street to protect the funeral from a protest threatened by the Westboro Baptist Church . Teamsters Local 25 brought over 200 union members...

Westboro: We'll Picket Boston Marathon Funerals

Westboro Baptist Church blames gay marriage for bombings

(Newser) - We'd call this a new low for Westboro Baptist Church, but these are the people who threatened to picket Sandy Hook . Now they say they'll picket the funerals of the Boston Marathon victims, the Raw Story reports. The church's reasoning, per a press release : "GOD SENT...

Westboro to Protest at Ebert's Funeral

Group says 'fool' was gay 'enabler'

(Newser) - The Westboro Baptist Church has announced the latest target of its charming attentions: this morning's funeral of the "fool" Roger Ebert . In a press release, the group calls the critic a 'f-g enabler," saying he "sold his soul for some fame & fortune" and is...

Westboro's New View: Neighbor's Rainbow House

He makes pro-gay statement in face of anti-gay church

(Newser) - The folks at Westboro Baptist Church probably won't like the new color scheme of the house across the street, even if they'll likely embrace the publicity that comes with it. The new owner of the home across from the anti-gay church in Topeka is painting it in the...

2 Phelps Grandkids Leave Westboro Baptist Church

Megan Phelps-Roper, sister Grace leave family church

(Newser) - Westboro Baptist Church has lost two of its own. Megan Phelps-Roper, a prominent member of the group who found herself in the news more than once , has left the church her grandfather founded. Younger sister Grace went with her. Phelps-Roper, credited with getting the WBC onto social media, had been...

Same-Sex Marriages Begin in Maryland

NYE brings wedding bells to first Southern state to legalize gay marriage

(Newser) - New Year's Eve parties overlapped with Maryland's first same-sex marriage parties as 2013 began in the first state south of the Mason-Dixon line to legalize gay marriage. Baltimore Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake married 68-year-old mayor's office employee James Scales to his male partner of 35 years shortly after...

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