[Vision2020] Church to bring anti-gay message to North Idaho

[Tom Hansen]

Greetings Visionaires -

The following article was copied and pasted from this morning's Spokesman
Reivew (on-line edition).

My sincerest gratitude to Tony Stewart and the Kootenai County Task Force on
Human Relations.  You may thank them, as well, via their website at:

http://www.idahohumanrights.org/

Now for the article.

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Church to bring anti-gay message to North Idaho

Erica Curless - Staff writer

A Kansas church is bringing its anti-gay message to town today and will
donate a monument condemning Matthew Shepard to Kootenai County for its
courthouse lawn.

Kootenai County Commission Chairman Dick Panabaker said members of Rev. Fred
Phelps' Westboro Baptist Church are welcome to picket the courthouse but the
county wants nothing to do with the granite monument condemning the Laramie,
Wyo., gay man who was murdered in 1998.

“We aren't interested,” Panabaker said. “We don't have to necessarily
support the lifestyle, but we want nothing to do with that.”

Fred Phelps Jr., the Baptist reverend's son, is organizing the 7:45 a.m.
picket in front of the courthouse at Government Way and Garden Avenue and
isn't sure who will attend other than himself and his wife, Betty Phelps.
The couple, who celebrate their 30-year wedding anniversary today, will then
take their message – that all gays are going to hell – to Ellensburg and
Seattle this weekend.

“Our mission is to get the Bible side of the issue out,” said Phelps Jr.,
who lives in Topeka, KS. “The whole country is immersed in the notion that
Matthew Shepard was some kind of hero.”

Church members, many of whom are Rev. Phelps' 12 children, travel across the
country to denounce homosexuality. Shirley Phelps-Roper who was traveling
back from a Massachusetts protest said this week is especially important
because Massachusetts began handing out marriage licenses to same-sex
couples at midnight Monday. The state's highest court ruled in November gays
and lesbians must be allowed to marry.

Phelps Jr. said the church picked Coeur d'Alene because it has a Ten
Commandments monument already on the courthouse grounds. He said Kootenai
County must legally accept the six-foot granite monument with a bronze
plaque inscribed with Shepard's face because of a 10th U.S. Circuit Court of
Appeals ruling. The ruling states that a city displaying a Ten Commandments
monument also must display monuments espousing other beliefs.

The chiseled monolith reads “Matthew Shepard Entered Hell October 12, 1998,
at Age 21 in Defiance of God's Warning: ‘Thou shalt not lie with mankind as
with womankind; it is abomination.' Leviticus 18:22 and 20:13.”

The church has offered the monument to other cities and counties across the
country including Boise and Nampa. Phelps has threatened to sue Boise
because the city's Parks and Recreation Commission last year denied the
church's request for the anti-gay monument. The city agreed to remove the
Ten Commandments from the park before allowing the anti-gay monument.

Phelps Jr. said the church is looking for a good case to test the law. Asked
what the church would do if Kootenai County or Coeur d'Alene refused the
monument, Phelps Jr. said, “We just take them one at a time and see how it
develops. The law is real clear.”

Coeur d'Alene city police don't plan to staff the protest, but would respond
if called. The Kootenai County Sherriff's Department also plans to monitor
the event by scanner but the courthouse is in the jurisdiction of the city
police.

“We are aware of the … pastor,” Lt. Kim Edmonson of the Kootenai County
Sheriff's Department said. “From what we've been told, it's not expected to
last too long.”

Phelps Jr. said church members will carry signs outlining their message and
sings songs.

Phelps-Roper, who isn't attending the event, said the church has changed the
words to “America the Beautiful” to include passages such as “Wicked land of
sodomites you've reached the bottom rung” and “The Army is full of fags. You
will never win another war. They are coming home in bags.” They also changed
the words to “God Bless America.”

Kootenai County Task Force on Human Relations spokesman Tony Stewart said
North Idaho has fought hate for years and this is no different.

“We as a people will reject the hate that will be coming to our community,”
Stewart said.

Stewart added that he recently attended a speech by Matthew Shepard's
mother, Judy Shepard, at Gonzaga University and she answered a question
regarding Rev. Phelps' monuments condemning her son. Judy Shepard speaks
state-to-state in support of hate-crime legislation.

“She showed so much kindness in the face of hate,” Stewart said.

Phelps Jr. said he was traveling to Ellensburg to speak against Rev. Karen
Dammann, a lesbian Methodist pastor who was acquitted in March in a church
trial over her admittedly homosexual relationship. Dammann of the First
Methodist Church in Ellensburg disclosed three years ago that she was in a
homosexual relationship. She got married March 11 to her partner of nine
years in Portland, where officials began allowing gay marriages. The couple
has a five-year-old son.

“I can't believe there's a Methodist lesbian preacher in Ellensburg that's
made national headlines,” Phelps Jr. said. “You just never know where you
will have this situation pop up.”

A press release announcing today's picket stated that the church plans to
donate the monument to the city of Coeur d'Alene to go along with its Ten
Commandments monolith. The city has no Ten Commandments monument and
Phelps-Roper said the church got bad information and meant to list Kootenai
County.

Coeur d'Alene Deputy Attorney Warren Wilson said that nobody from the Kansas
church had contacted the city or offered to donate an anti-gay monument.

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Take care,

Tom Hansen
Not On The Palouse, Not Ever

"Each time a man stands up for an ideal, or acts to improve the lot of
others, or strikes out against injustice, he sends forth a tiny ripple of
hope."

Robert F. Kennedy
(1925-1968, American Attorney General, Senator)