Westboro Baptist Church to Protest Heath Ledger Funeral

On January 22, actor Heath Ledger was pronounced dead after his housekeeper found him in his New York apartment. By that same evening an announcement went up on GodHatesFags.com, the official website of the Westboro Baptist Church (WBC) in Topeka, KS, that Rev. Fred Phelps would be picketing the actor's funeral and his parishioners (some 75 of whom are Phelps' relatives) were encouraged to join him. FoxNews.com covered the story, as well as spoke about the announcement with Shirley Phelps-Roper, daughter of the Reverend and spokesperson for the Church, whose statement, both written in a press release issued by the church and verbally to FoxNews.com, was "rife with homophobic slurs."

A stop off at the GodHatesFags.com website directs visitors to several related sites, including a schedule of upcoming protests, and a blog, maintained by Phelps and members of the WBC. "Heath Ledger is in hell! The selfish hateful people of Doomed-america sent him there, while his family cheered him on!" is the opening paragraph from Rev. Phelps' blog on January 23, and the anger only grows from there. Phelps goes on to say, "God said no fags! You wanted to be VERY CLEAR that you were NOT going to follow that standard. So you propped up a little perverted punk from Perth, Australia to play the part of a fag cowboy." (GodHatesFags.com)

The church gained infamy in 1998 when they picketed the funeral of Wyoming college student, Matthew Shepard (NY Times, 2006) who had been lured away from a bar by two other men claiming to be interested in him, homosexually. When the three young men reached the outskirts of town, Shepard was beaten and killed and tied to a fence for passers by to see. Since that incident, the WBC has made a practice of picketing funerals of "out" homosexuals (those who have openly admitted their preference to the public).

In June, 2005, however, the church added a new enemy to their cause. The American soldier. Picket signs at military funerals read "God Hates America," and "Thank God for I.E.D.'s." The reasoning behind the outrage is the events of September 11, 2001, as well as the deaths of American soldiers, were God's punishment for the United States' condoning homosexuality (Hannity and Colmes, 2006). The group, which consists almost entirely of members of Phelps' family (75-80 out of the estimated 100 members of the church) and claims no affiliation with the mainstream Baptist community, has protested funerals all across the country over the past five decades.

Despite outrage from the public and politicians, lawmakers, alike, Rev. Phelps and his parishioners stand firm by their beliefs. After announcing plans to protest the funerals of the Amish school shooting in October, 2006, Shirley Phelps-Roper, Rev. Phelps daughter, appeared on Fox News' Hannity and Colmes to defend her beliefs and her father's church, claiming that "there are no innocent human beings," and that "[the girls] did deserve to die."

In April, 2006, then-Governor of Iowa, Tom Vilsak signed a bill prohibiting any disruptive or potentially harmful protests from occurring closer than 500 feet from the location of a funeral, whether that location be a church, cemetery plot or, in the case of Army Spc. Daniel L. Sesker (and others like him) a high school gymnasium.

The First Amendment of the United States Constitution permits Phelps and his parishioners the right to "peaceably assemble." The concern held by many lawmakers is that, in an atmosphere so emotionally charged as a funeral, military or otherwise, the message the members of the Westboro Baptist Church are sending out has the volatile potential of easily becoming anything but peaceable. The members of the Westboro Baptist Church agree to abide by whatever laws the government throws at them but holds no qualms in telling anyone who will listen that they feel the laws are un-Constitutional.