Well, I called Steve Archer and Sean Wallace yesterday and here's what I found out:
- They have not heard anything official from Westboro Baptist Church about protest plans. But that's because no permit actually is required for such a protest.
- That said, it is fully expected that once the date and time for the funeral are announced, the Phelps group probably will announce their intentions to picket at that time.
- It is likely they still will file a notice or request some sort of permit, even though it actually is not required. Several Phelps family members are graduates of Washburn Law School, and they know their legal rights forward and backward.
On a related note, Westboro sent a fax to us last night announcing their intentions to picket Daniel Cox's funeral in Parsons, so we probably can expect something from them soon re: the Juden funeral.
As usual, the fax is a despicable excoriation of America and the Patriot Guard. I won't reproduce anything from it here; suffice to say, these people are going to be a headache next week. I urge everyone in Ark City to just ignore them until they go away - they only want attention, and the best way to strike at them is not to give them the stage they crave so much.
It is really good the Patriot Guard is going to come. I used to live near Lawrence. I am somewhat used to Phelps crew if that is possible. I used to see them outside Catholic Church services, school theater and music events, and at seemingly random places in that part of the state.
ReplyDeleteI feel really bad for the children of our community and the students at Cowley who may be coming passing by innocently at that time of day or atteding the service. When you see Phelps for the first time in person it is quite an experience. Many young people probably have no idea he exists, and that is a good thing for sure.
I do not say I am against much in this world, but I am against hate in all forms. Phelps is an extreme kind of hate. I do wonder if he makes others think about how foolish hate is. People speak hatefully of others everyday at the donut shop, the beauty salon, around the dinner table, and at the church. They may just whisper it or make a "joke" but it is still hate. I had hoped that events like 9/11, the wars in Afganistan and Iraq, and the election of our first minority president would make the see less of this hate, but it is still very prominent and it needs to go away.
Unfortunately, I think hate is as integral to the human condition as love. I don't know that we will, as a species, ever entirely eliminate it.
ReplyDeleteBut the enemy of hate is education, and I hope that as our society becomes better informed by things like the Internet, hatreds will wane.
There always will be an extreme lunatic fringe, impervious to all reason, who will hate incessantly, but hopefully we can make them a marginal, insiginficant minority.
Andrew -
ReplyDeleteDo we know if the Phelps goofs are planning on coming to town? I hope you don't put the pictures in the paper but I would like to know. And I can't really take off work to go see.
Yes, they will be there tomorrow.
ReplyDelete