Throwing stones

Fred Phelps and the Westboro Baptist Church are coming to the city of Portland to protest Jewish congregations and churches at the end of May. They will also return to Oregon to protest Grant High School on June 3.

There are five Jewish congregations on the list of picketing locations for the Westboro Baptist Church, including Congregation Ahavath Achim, Havurah Shalom, Congregation Neveh Shalom, Mittleman Jewish Community Center and Congregation Beth Israel.

The Westboro Baptist Church claims on their website, godhatesfags.com, that the reason for the picketing of these locations is that in their view God hates all Jews, promoting the notion that they killed Jesus.

The church further argues that God has sent President Obama to destroy followers of the Jewish faith. As stated on the church’s website, “Now, God has sent the Anti-Christ Beast Obama to bring your final destruction—the likes of which this world has never seen and will make Hitler’s holocaust look like a tea party.”

The Westboro Baptist Church tries to “correct” the way the other religious communities, schools and people believe and behave. It is trying to save what their church deems as “sinners” from themselves. But what the church is really doing, is promoting hate. Hate is a regular term in their vocabulary. Even the address to their website is godhatesfags.com.

“I don’t understand how they can call themselves Christian when they spew hate, and picket schools and religious communities with their hate. It is very anti-Christian and against everything Jesus lived and died for,” said Pastor Lynne Smouse Lopez of the Ainsworth United Church of Christ in Portland.

Pastor Lopez is very familiar with the Westboro Baptist Church. The church has picketed national conferences she has attended representing her church.

The Ainsworth United Church of Christ’s mission statement states it is “multi-cultural, multi-racial, open and affirming.” The denomination is very supportive of the LBGTQ community. They welcome everyone who shares their mission and faith.

“Being Christian means sharing God’s love and not being hateful and judgmental,” Pastor Lopez said.

The Westboro Baptist Church is also picketing Grant High School. Grant has a number of openly gay students and faculty. The church’s reasoning is written on their website, “Today’s youth are violent brute beasts who are good for absolutely nothing.”

Then it goes on to further criticize President Obama and how he put Kevin Jennings in charge at the U.S. Department of Education. “[He] doomed America’s schools so he can sodomize them with his GSA and GLSN clubs that promote fag filth.”

The Westboro Baptist Church promotes and represents hate. Sure they have free speech, but Church and State are supposed to be separate entities. If the Westboro Baptist Church wants to call themselves a church, they should abide by the law.

It is hard to watch this kind of hate be put onto other communities that are clearly more open and accepting than Fred Phelps and his followers. Is it really that hard to just accept other people? Rather than waste time picketing places that are trying to be productive?

The bottom line is that, with all of the hatred, Fred Phelps is not truly Christian and neither are the people in the Westboro Baptist Church. The Bible does not support hate. Just because people may be different does not mean they are wrong and deserve hate. That is something that many other churches, such as the Ainsworth United Church of Christ, understand.