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| Pastor Fred Phelps wields placards protesting homosexuality outside the Albany County Courthouse in Laramie, Wyo., in 1999, where one of the defendants in the beating murder of gay University of Wyoming student Matthew Shepard was set to stand trial. Supporters of Phelps, and perhaps himself, are slated to be in New York City this weekend for a variety of protests. (AP Photo) |
By INGA SORENSEN
Members of the Kansas-based Westboro Baptist Church say they’ll be in Gotham Saturday, March 9, to picket HBO, the Fire Department of New York, and the New York Underground Film Festival.
The Westboro Baptist Church is led by Rev. Fred Phelps Sr., an anti-gay minister notorious for picketing events he views as gay-related. Congregants even picketed the 1998 funeral for slain gay murder victim Matthew Shepard, where they held up signs reading "No Fags in Heaven" and "God Hates Fags."
If church members hold true to their vow to visit the Big Apple this weekend, New Yorkers can expect more of the same.
The minister’s daughter-in-law, Betty Phelps, said the FDNY is being targeted in part because it had a gay chaplain, Mychal Judge, who was killed during the terror attacks on the World Trade Center and has been hailed as a hero ever since.
"The department itself is filled with fags. They’re priest was a fag," said Phelps, who estimates 20 church members will attend Saturday’s demonstration. She would not say whether Fred Phelps Sr. would be on hand.
When asked how protesters determined that the FDNY is "filled with fags," Phelps responded: "One bases that on the fact that they had a fag priest. It’s filled with fags and/or fag enablers."
An FDNY spokesperson said the department has heard there may be a demonstration. He said security around FDNY headquarters at 9 Metro Tech Center in Brooklyn has been pumped up since Sept. 11, and remains so.
Phelps said demonstrators will also picket near HBO, which is located at 1111 Avenue of the Americas. HBO is being targeted, she said, because of its March 9 airing of "The Laramie Project," which centers on Shepard’s death.
"They’re showing that film, portraying Matthew Shepard as a poor, innocent victim," she said.
On its Web site, the Westboro Baptist Church describes HBO as a "huge fag propaganda mill and recruiting depot -- straight out of Hell." It calls "The Laramie Project" a "new fag propaganda movie."
The film festival is apparently being targeted for a movie that was submitted to, but not accepted by, it: "Fred, The Movie," a documentary about Fred Phelps Sr. The festival is at the Anthology Film Archives, 32 Second Ave., in Manhattan.
Betty Phelps did not pinpoint exactly when each of the pickets was scheduled to unfold. But Clarence Patton of the New York City Gay & Lesbian Anti-Violence Project, which will provide safety monitors at the three sites targeted by protesters, said the FDNY demo is slated for 3-3:30 p.m., the HBO protest for 4-4:30 p.m., followed by the film festival demo at 5-5:30 p.m.
"If folks run across Phelps on Saturday, we encourage them simply to point, laugh, and go on their way. Don’t get into it with the protesters. Don’t give them the satisfaction," he said.
Brooklyn resident and gay rights advocate Jack Denelsbeck, meanwhile, is organizing a silent protest to be held solely during the FDNY demonstration.
His action is fashioned after one held last year in Michigan in which the co-owner of an Ann Arbor gay bar sent e-mail messages to customers and friends asking that they pledge money to a Michigan gay civil rights group for every minute that Fred Phelps Sr. picketed the bar. For about an hour on Feb. 17, 2001, Phelps and his supporters stood in front of the gay bar holding anti-gay signs. In those same 60 minutes, the bar co-owner said he received $7,249.66 in pledges.
Denelsbeck’s action works the same way, although the beneficiary of any pledges will be Fire FLAG/EMS, a gay firefighter and emergency services group.
Anyone interested in pledging can contact Denelsbeck via e-mail at jdnl450@cs.com .