LAS VEGAS, NV—Westboro Baptist Church—you know; the one that's been in all the papers for years about its anti-gay protests at military funerals and the like—will be marching on Rancho High School and the campuses of the College Of Southern Nevada and the University of Nevada, Las Vegas on April 20 after a dawn ceremony in which church leaders will "explain" their interpretation of the Gospel of Jesus and what it has to say about “the face of doomed American education.” The church members, whose pastor is now Fred Phelps, Jr., will thrust their hate-speech posters high in the Las Vegas sunshine while trying to garner as much media attention as possible—and the Erotic Heritage Museum will be there to protest the protestors.
Created by Fred Phelps, Sr., Westboro Baptist has been spewing hate in the name of Jesus since its founding in 1955. Despite the elder Phelps' death three years ago, and despite the several lawsuits against it, a minuscule membership from the WBC nevertheless pickets six locations daily. They have been present with their creative signs declaring “God hates America” or “Fags Eat Poop,” in all 50 U.S. states, picketing the funeral of Matthew Shepard (for which they enjoyed major media attention) and will be out and about on Thursday, April 20, doing what they do best. Their present leader, Phelps’ son Fred Jr., responded via tweet that he is prepared to meet the Erotic Heritage Museum head on.
“I can say with pretty much one hundred percent certainty that if the WBC is against it, the EHM and most of the thousands who come through our doors yearly, are for it… whatever ‘it’ happens to be,” Dr. Victoria Hartmann, The Erotic Heritage Museum’s Executive Director, said. “And although I champion Mr. Phelps and his organization’s right to express their opinion, I can as easily declare that when a group like this slips into town puking their hatred for sexual freedom and sex positive culture, women’s reproductive rights, LGBTIQAA+ rights and sexual free speech, the EHM will be just as vocal in how positively we feel about these issues.”
Representatives from The Erotic Heritage Museum will be on hand at both the CSN and UNLV university campuses to lend support to those opposing Westboro Baptist Church’s "American education" message… and everything else Fred Phelps, Jr. and his church stand for.
Photo of Westboro Baptist Church protesters at Virginia Holocaust Museum in 2010 by JCWilmore/Wikimedia Commons.
