Westboro Baptist Church members won’t protest the graduation of a teenage critic in Parker today after all, a Douglas County School District spokesman announced Wednesday.
The protest by the controversial Kansas congregation was apparently canceled at Ponderosa High School “due to travel complications,” schools spokesman Randy Barber said in an e-mail to media.
The school system and Parker police had planned increased security because of the Topeka church’s plans to protest Ryan Wheeler, the student who wrote a Colorado Voices column critical of the group that was published March 20 in The Denver Post.
Wheeler disagreed with the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling that Westboro had a constitutional right to hold anti-gay protests at military funerals.
Wednesday night, a 45-minute protest at the school was still listed on the church’s website. The church stated it would picket the event “to tell the graduates the truth for once in their miserable, worthless lives.”
From Post and wire reports
