This statement was released by the Westboro Baptist "Church":
Friday,April 20,2007
Westboro Baptist Church hereby cancels all pending pickets, and agrees not to schedule future pickets, related to the Virginia Tech Massacre,on the following terms and conditions;to wit:
In consideration for 3 hours of national radio time with Mike Gallagher on his National Radio Show-next Tuesday,April 24,from 9 a.m. to 12 noon New York Time-Westboro Baptist Church has agreed to cancel all pickets now pending and not to schedule future pickets related to the Virginia Tech massacre.......
(This is from the WBC website http://www.godhatesfags.com/main/index.html which it makes my skin crawl to link to, but I wanted to include this for verification, even if I dislike giving them the traffic. It's a PDF document listed under "Featured" on the right of the page)
While it's a relief to me that the families of those murdered at Virginia Tech will Not be subjected to the presence of the WBC? I'm not at all sure whether I agree with the means Mr. Gallagher used to halt their plans to picket the funerals.(And I can tell you one radio show I definitely WON'T be listening to on April 24!!!)
Here's Mike Gallagher's website Click here: Mike Gallagher: Welcome to Mike's Home On The Web
and I was unaware that he had done this type of thing before, offering the WBC airtime to keep them from picketing.
Here is Mr. Gallagher's statement about the issue Click here: Untitled Document
Since I posted the news that the WBC Was planning to picket the funerals of those massacred at Virginia Tech, I wanted to post this to let folks know why it's Not happening now.
For whatever my opinion is worth, I'm not so sure Mr. Gallagher had to make this 'deal with the devil' in order to halt the pickets,(at least for the funerals in the state of Virginia),as Virginia is one of those states that has a law on the books about funeral disruptions:
HB 372 (Carrico) Unlawful assembly at solemn ceremonies . Amends Virginia’s disorderly conduct statute by adding funerals to the existing list of gatherings that interlopers cannot willfully disrupt. Under the statute, a person cannot disrupt a funeral, memorial service, or the meeting of government body, school, literary society or place of religious worship if the disruption interferes with the orderly conduct of the gathering or causes acts of violence by the people at whom the disruption is directed.
(Virginia is one of about 32 states that Has passed, or are attempting to pass, laws regarding protests at funerals, and this is in direct response to Phelps and company at the WBC. As for Federal law? see the Respect for America's Fallen Heroes Act of May 29,2006 )
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As a troop supporter member of Soldiers Angels , as a member of the Patriot Guard Riders , and as a reader of Milblogs .......I have been aware of the WBC and their hate-filled 'protests' for several years now.
One of the things that surprised me when I first posted that the WBC might be picketing the funerals of those who were killed at Virginia Tech, was how many people seemed to know nothing about the WBC?
So, in the interests of helping folks to educate themselves further about this group? Here are two Wikipedia entries that you might want to check out:
Click here: Fred Phelps - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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