Anti-gay Westboro Baptist Church Plans Virginia Protests

As the Richmond Times Dispatch is reporting, the professional haters at Westboro Baptish Church are bringing their foul stench to Virginia and plan on protests in both Richmond and the Norfolk/Virginia Beach/Portsmouth area. Counter protests are being organized by several groups with Facebook pages here and here. I hope locals will get out and demonstrate that haters such as these folks are not welcome in Virginia notwithstanding the Christianist that currently hold the offices of Governor and Attorney General. A list of locations where the hate group plans to protest and the proposed counter demonstrations is as follows:
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3/1/10- Norfolk
2:00-2:30pm Granby High School
2:45-3:15pm Bina High School (requests no counter-presence)
3:20-3:50pm Ohef Shalom Temple (requests no counter-presence)
4:10-4:40pm Norfolk Naval Station
5:00-5:30pm Temple Israel (requests no engagement with or acknowledgement of WBC)
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3/2/10- Virginia Beach
6:55-7:25am Landstown High School (administration requests no counter-presence)
8:00-8:30am Simon Family Jewish Community Center (the JCC has requested that there be no counter-presence)
9:00-9:30am Virginia Beach Convention Center
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3/2/10- Richmond
11:00-12:15pm Virginia Holocaust Museum (silent interfaith counter-presence organized by VA Holocaust Museum and members of the local faith community)
12:40-1:10pm The Jerusalem Connection
1:30-2:00pm UofR Hillel at the Jewish Community Center (the JCC does not want counter-protesters)
3:40-4:10pm Hermitage High School
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3/3/10- Portsmouth
6:50-7:20am Churchland High School
8:45-9:15am Torah Day School (requests no counter-presence)
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3/3/10- Virginia Beach
11:30-12:30pm Virginia Beach Convention Center
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3/3/10- Norfolk
2:00-2:30pm Norview High School

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Besides the anti-gay agenda of this despicable group, it is noteworthy that these bigots are also targeting Jewish institutions. These people are truly sick and demonstrate the nastiness of Christianism taken to extremes. Westboro puts out in the open what all too many of the Christianist believe but try to hide from the public. Here are highlights from the Times Dispatch:

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An anti-gay church says it will demonstrate in Richmond on Tuesday, and local community groups say they plan counterdemonstrations. Westboro Baptist Church, based in Topeka, Kan., has announced on its Web site a number of sites throughout Virginia that it plans to picket, including four in the Richmond region. Among other things, the church makes anti-Semitic comments about Jewish students and pickets funerals of American soldiers, claiming God has killed them for defending a nation of "sodomite hypocrites."
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Westboro "has a national reputation for promoting hate under the guise of being a functioning Christian church," said Simon Sibelman, assistant executive director of the Virginia Holocaust Museum. He said that representatives of the museum and the Virginia Interfaith Center for Public Policy, and others, will stand outside the museum at 2000 E. Cary St. on Tuesday at 11:45 a.m., when the Westboro Baptist Church says it will picket. About 300 people are expected so far, he said; a Westboro spokeswoman said fewer than 10 of their members will be in Richmond.
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Sibelman said, "There are people of conscience, of faith, saying, 'We will not tolerate this,' even to a handful of them." Jonathan C. Zur, president and CEO of the Virginia Center for Inclusive Communities, said several student groups at Virginia Commonwealth University are coordinating a 1:30 p.m. rally at the VCU University Student Commons outdoor plaza. "We want to give Richmonders a forum where they can affirm values of respect rather than focus on negativity," said Zur, one of the administrators of the Facebook page created for the rally.
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Mychael Dickerson, spokesman for Henrico County Public Schools, said county police will have extra presence Tuesday at Hermitage High.