South Newton High School is putting on a school play this year about the murder of Matthew Sheppard, the 21 year old University of Wyoming student who in 1998 was tied to a fence, beaten, and left to die because he was gay.  Pretty edgy stuff, but it is high school, and I think it's appropriate that people at that age understand how utterly despicable intolerance and the acts comitted because of it are.  Fortunately, intolerance plans to show up in person and make it that much clearer...

The Reverend Fred Phelps of the Westboro Baptist Church in Topeka, KS plans to come to Newton on Saturday with a dozen followers to form a pickett line and protest the play.  If you're not aware of Fred Phelps, you probably should be.  He's the neanderthal who coined the phrase "God hates fags."

In 1998, Fred Phelps staged a protest at Matthew Sheppard's funeral, as if there is something wrong with a family mourning their dead son even though their dead son was gay.  Clearly, Phelps and those who swim in the same sewer as he have no shame.  What has Phelps got to say about the upcoming play at South Newton High?

From Kansas church plans to protest Newton school play on gay victim (boston.com):

..."It's a tacky bit of banal fag melodrama without any artistic or literary merit or redeeming value," said Phelps in a telephone interview yesterday ... "Its only purpose is to promote the homosexual lifestyle or at least sanitize it in the eyes of straight America."

A press release from the church echoed Phelps's standard picket slogan "God hates fags," stating, "God hates Newton South High and the school district."...

I, as a former Catholic, am well aware of the teachings of Jesus that God's love is infinite, as is his forgiveness.  The God that Phelps supposedly speaks for hates nobody.  It is Mr. Phelps and his followers that hate homosexuals, not God.

I'm disgusted.