Damn them! Phelps hate brigade turns up for Mn. funeral; confronts mom...

[MnFats]

www.startribune.com

surely if there really is a God he is warming up a very special place in HELL for these wretched bastards!


On her way into the church where the funeral was to be held for her 23-year-old son Thursday morning, Deirdre Ostlund approached six men and women waving signs against gays and America and told them in a cold fury: "I'm Andrew's mother, and I want you to know you are truly hateful people."
As Ostlund turned away, Shirley Phelps-Roper taunted her: "Adulterer! You can't admit you sent your own child to hell! If she does not heed this warning, she will look up from hell with him."

Her small group continued to sing "God hates America."

But across barricades, crime-scene tape and police officers, 20 flag-waving men and women countered with the original, "God bless America, land that I love ... "

This ritual, unfolding across the nation outside military funerals, arrived in Anoka on Thursday an hour before the funeral for Cpl. Andrew Kemple, who died in Iraq Feb. 12.

The six are members of a church in Topeka, Kan., that espouses the belief that God is killing American soldiers because they fought for a country that tolerates homosexuality. The 20 on the other side are affiliated with the Patriot Guard Riders, a rapidly growing nationwide movement organized to counter that very message.

"We're just trying to show honor and respect for families," said John Lutsch, a St. Cloud resident who heads the Minnesota branch of the Patriot Guard. "I was appalled when I read about these protests, that they'd use a solemn occasion like this as a forum for their views."

He was interrupted by Steve Drain, who bellowed across the divide in front of Zion Lutheran Church that God hates gays, their enablers and "so therefore God hates the U.S. military." For nearly an hour, the Kansans chanted a steady stream of crude homophobic slurs.

Phelps-Roper, the coordinator of the Kansas protesters, is the daughter of Fred Phelps, the pastor of the nondenominational Westboro Baptist Church, He has railed against homosexuality for decades. By his own count, church members have conducted 22,000 picketing demonstrations.