Newport News, Va. – A fringe church that has garnered attention and scorn for protesting funerals of troops killed in Iraq is planning to picket services for the victims of the Virginia Tech shootings.
Members of the Westboro Baptist Church have disrupted funerals across the country over the past few years with signs saying that deaths in Iraq are retribution triggered by America’s tolerance of homosexuals.
A church news release says: “God is punishing America for her sodomite sins. The 33 massacred at Virginia Tech died for America’s sins against WBC (Westboro Baptist Church). Just as U.S. soldiers dying in Iraq each day for America’s sins against WBC.”
Virginia Attorney General Bob McDonnell is warning protesters that they could be arrested if they interrupt the funerals. McDonnell’s spokesman sent an e-mail detailing the section of the Virginia Code that can be used to quell disturbances at funerals.
Pastor Fred Phelps and his congregation at the church in Topeka, Kan., travel the country preaching damnation to a “nation of sinners,” routinely glorying in the death of U.S soldiers.
His church of 75 people, many of them his relatives, believes that God causes the death of soldiers as punishment for a society that condones homosexuality.
