Why?

[DianaB]

I was sitting and reading our local paper and had just finished reading where a soldier in Iraq had been killed in action from a local town when my daughter called to tell me that she heard that the church that picket's the funerals of soldiers, the Westboro Baptist Church from Topeka, is going to be at the funeral of this soldier in the morning. The funeral is going to be in our town and then he'll be taken to his own town for burial. I can't believe that this is going to happen. The soldier was only 30 years old and has small children. What are these people thinking to do something like this? My daughter said that the schools are going to take the students out to wave flags and I guess that the Freedom Riders ride along side the family and try to muffle the sound of the protesters. I think that it is so sad that the family has to deal with this!!!

[Tink]

Oh Diana, that just makes me sick to think about.
As if that poor family hasn't gone through enough!
Those idiots have no clue what it is to be Christian... they will pay for the misery they cause. I'm surprised there are still any of them left alive to act up. People mourning are not always the most rational and eventually someone's gonna snap and silence them.

[judy]

I've heard about them, but I forget - what is it that they are protesting?

They really have no common sense, whatever it is. A bunch of fools!

[goofywife]

Hi everyone, things are slowing down finally for me!!!

These people disgust me. I did 13yrs in the military, I think I would get put in jail if they came one of my friends or families funerals.

They passed some laws in OK to keep them away from the funerals here.

[Marilyn]

I agree, a funeral is no place to be holding a protest. I feel for this poor family, they have scarificed and should be allowed the dignity to mourn without these attention grabbing people interfering!!! How deplorable!!!!

[AngieDoogles]

Oh Diana, I am SO sorry. I did research on that church/family once and it is REALLY creepy, sort of a cult thing. Fred Phelps is incredibly abusive and really has some psychological issues. He has even said that he is the only one worthy of God's love. Two of his sons left his church and family and the Phelps basically disowned them and said they are going to hell. Horrible people... All of them are lawyers too and will sue anyone they want for practically any reason. They are rich because of lawsuits...

[pope1982]

I can't even put it into words... I think it's all been said.

[Tink]

Diana, I think it's wonderful tht the community is going to go and support that family. If I were closer I'd go with you. It just seems SO the right thing to do.

[DianaB]

Well, I didn't see any of the protesters at all. I heard that they were lead to a street out of town and boxed in so they wouldn't disrupt the funeral. I don't know if it's true or not but I'll know more when my son-in-law gets home from work. There weren't as many people as I thought that there would be lining the streets but we are a small town (only 2,500). There were little groups of people clustered around the houses though. I heard that a flower shop had red, white, and blue balloons that they had passed out to a club and they were all standing on the street with them. There were LOTS of motorcycles. The Freedom Riders were there and another group, I don't know what their name was. It was a really good time to show our patriotism and I'm glad that I went.

Since this hate group does this for attention our local newpaper said that it wouldn't take any pictures of the group, that there would be no publicity for them. I'm proud of our paper for doing that. Since we are a very small town this was a really big news story so kudos to the paper. Here's some pictures that I took. Sorry but there's no protesters.

[DianaB]

Some more pictures. I'm in the first picture with my husband's aunt and uncle on the right side. The next picture my husband is on the left side with his uncle.

[DianaB]

And a few more........In the next to the last picture where it's looking down the street right at the very back, I know that it's very small, are our high school students and across the street are our middle school kids!