Fight Hate

Reverend Phelps, the pastor of the Westboro Church of Topeka Kansas, is coming to my home-town of Indianapolis this afternoon. But he's not here to see a race or catch a Colts game. Rather he's bringing his followers and their God Hates Fags signs to picket North Central High School.

NCHS's performing arts department is putting on The Laramie Project, a play about Laramie, Wyoming's reaction to the hate crime murder of the openly-gay Matthew Shepard in 1998. The play is "about the ingredients of hate that led to the death of Shepard at the hands of some homophobic young men, but it's also about the response of the community after he died." Phelps, of course, feels this is transgression against God and everything he stands for. Signs he's used protesting previous performances have read, "Matt is still burning in hell, get over it!"

In response to Phelps' impending protest, they've set up a Phelps-a-thon to raise money for the North Central Gay and Lesbian Alliance and the Indy Youth Group. If you feel as strongly about this man as I do, you may donate any amount from a few cents up at phelps-a-thon.com/northcentral.html.

Even if you aren't a supporter of gay and lesbian rights, beware of Phelps. He's the same person that's been organizing the protests at the funerals of U.S. military personnel killed in Iraq and Afghanastan. Essentially, he provides something for everyone not to love.