Westboro Baptist Church Abandons Picketing of 9-year-old Girls Funeral

In a sleazy move by the Westboro Baptist Church after the shootings in Tuscon, Arizona, the church (and I use that term loosely) decided it would picket the funeral of one of the victims of the Tuscon massacre, a 9 year old girl by the name of Christina Green. People who read about the move by the WBC, complained, rallied and decided that they would not let the family of this little girl deal with the injustice and indignity of having her funeral perpetrated by hate. So they formed a facebook group and gathering to block the WBC from viewing the funeral.

Although the Arizona Legislature unanimously passed emergency legislation banning all protest at or near funeral sites, the Westboro Baptist Church still had not called off their picket of Green's funeral. The WBC had demands that they wanted met. Two radio stations met the demands of Fred Phelps hate group and the Westboro Baptist Church has finally called off the picketing of Christina Green's funeral which is set to take place on Thursday.

According to the Topeka Capital-Journal, spokeswoman Shirley Phelps-Roper of the Westboro Baptist Church said that the church called off it's picket after Mike Gallagher (www.mikeonline.com) offered to have her on his radio program. She told the Topeka Capital-Journal that it, " boiled down to the church being able to communicate its message with as wide an audience as possible." Gallagher's audience is estimated at 10 million.

The radio stations where the Westboro Baptist Church will be able to send and spread their messages of hate and violence are KXXT-AM, "the Steve Sanchez Show" in Tolleson, AZ and CFNY-FM, 102.1 "The Edge" in Toronto, Canada.

Mike Gallagher's show is nothing new to the Westboro Baptist Church. Exchanges of protests for airtime on Gallagher's show have happened in the past. In 2006, the WBC cancelled protests of the funerals of five Amish girls who were killed in a Pennsylvania school. The Westboro Baptist Church exchanged their protest of the girls funeral for one hour of airtime on Gallagher's show. In 2007, again the WBC traded protest of Virginia Tech after a gunman killed 32 people.

The Westboro Baptist Church may have called off their protest of 9-year-old Christina Green's funeral but they have not called off all of the protest from the Tuscon, Arizona shootings. The 'church' still plans to protest the funeral of U.S. District Judge John Roll at the intersection where Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords and the other victims were gunned down.

The WBC is also planning to protest an American University and an Islamic Center in Washington, D.C. and the funeral of Peace Corps Official Richard Holbrooke at the Kennedy Center. Westboro Baptist Church will be sending another group to Los Angeles to protest the Golden Globe Awards.