Kansas Gays Hope To Use Phelps Rebuke To Stave Off Marriage Amendment

[davidinalameda]

http://www.365gay.com/newscon05/03/030705kansas.htm

After Topeka voters preserved a narrow gay-rights ordinance last week, some activists see a way to improve their admittedly slim chances of defeating a proposal to ban same-sex marriage in a statewide election April 5.

One key factor in Topeka's election was the Rev. Fred Phelps Sr.'s involvement in the effort to repeal the ordinance, which bans discrimination against gays and lesbians in municipal hiring and employment. (story)

Phelps and his Westboro Baptist Church are known nationally for their anti-gay pickets and his central message, "God hates fags." Many people who oppose gay rights don't want to be associated with him.

[zbdent]

1. Maybe a sign should go up

"God hates Jeff Gannon - a FAG PROSTITUTE"

[MuseRider]

2. I have been thinking

about this since we started all of these fights here. I cannot decide if it is a good idea or a bad idea. We did get some votes strictly as knee jerk reactions to Fred but really, the votes should come from an understanding that amending our constitution like this is, well, unconstitutional as well as unfair and it is legislating discrimination. I will be working on this campaign to try to stop this but will keep my mouth shut on this idea, I just don't know what to think about it.

[Ian David]

3. You gotta love this: activists hoping to tie amendment to Phelps

Topeka victory has activists hoping to tie amendment to Phelps

Some gay-rights activists believe by tying the marriage proposal to Phelps, they could gain ground against the measure, which would amend the Kansas Constitution and ban civil unions for gay couples.

<snip>

"Phelps hurts the cause terribly," said the Rev. Joe Wright, senior pastor at Wichita's Central Christian Church. "Probably one of the biggest things going against us is that some people want to put us in the same category."

<snip>

"If you try to make these fights the crazies on the right versus gay people, voters get turned off," he said. "They tend to marginalize both sides of the debate."

Yet Phelps may be an irresistible foil, having picketed public events, AIDS victims' funerals and even other churches for more than a decade.

More:
http://www.kansascity.com/mld/kansascity/news/local/11067479.htm

Our New Mantra: Phelps Helps?

[Ian David]

4. OPINION LINE EXTRA: The Witchita Eagle

Here are two different people, writing two different opinions:

The Rev. Joe Wright needs to know that people do associate him with Fred Phelps, because if it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck, it's a duck.

The gays can stay in California as far as I am concerned. I'm glad for the proposed marriage amendment; it seems to already be working.

http://www.kansas.com/mld/eagle/news/editorial/11075045.htm

[Ian David]

5. More opinions from The Witchita Eagle

Posted on Tue, Feb. 08, 2005
Christians need to fight influences

I attend Central Christian Church, and I just so happen to be proud of my Pastor Joe Wright and what he is doing in our community. We honestly wouldn't be doing God a service by sitting idly by and letting people condemn themselves with their actions. The Bible may not declare to the secularists that marriage is between one man and one woman, but that is only because they try to twist the Bible to fit their abominations.

We do not hate people but only their actions. If this offends anyone, I wasn't intending on being seeker-sensitive. I don't see others worrying about offending me when they curse in front of my children and perform lewd acts in front of my children. {????}

The time has come for us Christians to stand up and quit letting this world influence our families. It saddens me that I can't even go to QuickTrip without having to explain something to my 2-year-old, who just happens to be a little too smart for her age. Thank you, Pastor Joe, for rustling some feathers!

ALEXANDRIA COLLIER
Wichita
<snip>

Greater threats

It's likely that the proposed "We Hate Gays" amendment will pass in Kansas; our country seems to be headed that way. I'm not surprised that the Kansas legislators seem to consider banning gay marriage more important than the education of our children; anything is more important to our legislators than the education of our children. What concerns me is that the amendment doesn't do as much to address the protection of the "sanctity of marriage" as its proponents claim.

To me, domestic violence and the high divorce rate are greater threats to the institution of marriage than two people of the same sex wanting to legalize their relationship. But the proposed amendment does not address spousal abuse or divorce. Indeed, nobody supporting this amendment ever says anything about spousal abuse or divorce. Maybe someday, once their power base is more secure, the "Fundies" will address these issues. Maybe we'll eventually have an anti-divorce amendment, and maybe wife beating will be defined as "necessary for the master of the home to keep the helpmate in line." For now, though, gay marriage is an easy target. Fred Phelps must be ecstatic.

PAUL E. JAMISON
Wichita

<snip>




http://www.kansas.com/mld/eagle/news/editorial/10840805.htm

[Ian David]

6. I don't think we're in Kansas anymore. Good!

<snip>

Topeka moved into the spotlight with last Tuesday's vote on a gay rights ballot question that, if passed, would have barred the city from recognizing homosexuals as a protected class for a decade. Out-of-town reporters scrambled for juicy nuggets on the latest campaign involving Fred W. Phelps Sr., a Topeka pastor and disbarred lawyer known for protesting at funerals of AIDS patients.

<snip>

"A lot of the attention given to what sometimes are wedge issues doesn't necessarily reflect the heart and soul of what Kansas families are thinking about, worried about, talking about," she said.

<snip>

Scott Allegrucci, director of the Kansas Department of Commerce's division of travel and tourism, said negative stories reinforce his support of campaigns to enlighten people about what it is like to live and work in Kansas.

"You listen to the press and the only thing people know about us is 'Wizard of Oz.' Or the only thing they know is that we're flat. Or that we're fighting about gay rights or abortion issues," he said. "Those things are out there, but if we don't do some work to paint a fuller picture, no one else is going to do that for us."

More:
http://www.cjonline.com/stories/030605/kan_ksmedia.shtml

[Ian David]

7. Vote in Topeka Today Hangs on Gay Rights and a Vitriolic Local Protester

Vote in Topeka Today Hangs on Gay Rights and a Vitriolic Local Protester
March 1, 2005

Jodi Wilgoren
The New York Times

<snip>

The battle has become as much as anything a debate over Mr. Phelps, whose incessant daily pickets and hate-filled faxes have plagued Topeka for 14 years, yet whose opposition to the antidiscrimination ordinance is shared by many residents of this church-laden, Republican-leaning city of 125,000.

The Phelpses' tactics have turned some evangelical ministers and conservative businessmen into unlikely crusaders for gay rights, backing measures like the antidiscrimination ordinance, if only as an antidote to the family's message. And with an amendment to the State Constitution to ban same-sex marriage on the ballot in April, many other religious and civic leaders are trying mightily to stop the Phelpses from hijacking what they see as a signature issue.

As Ms. Muller and Miss Phelps go door to door in the district, talk about taxes and employment gives way to questions about sex and the Bible. Miss Phelps has been yelled off lawns when residents learned her surname, which appears on campaign fliers in only the finest print, and voters have told Ms. Muller's supporters that she would not win their votes if she ran against a pack of snakes.

"If I lose the primary, it'll be because I'm gay," said Ms. Muller, 26, who moved here six years ago and was the lead lobbyist against the same-sex marriage ban in the Legislature. "There are people who are voting for me just because of my stance on gay rights, and there are people who are voting for me just because I got the Phelpses all riled up."

More:
http://www.civilrights.org/issues/glbt/details.cfm?id=28640

[MuseRider]

10. That article really pissed me off.

That is the article I was interviewed for. We, Erin Norris and I, tried to tell Jodi that this was about discrimination and NOT all about Phelps. We spent an hour trying to talk about the citizens and the issue but she left us and our interview out totally in favor of making this all about Phelps. She would rather speak of local businessmen who were too frightened of Phelps to give their names. I do not know what to think. Is Phelps a help to the marriage issue on either side?

[Ian David]

8. Phelps' support may hurt amendment's chances at polls

An AP News Analysis

By JOHN HANNA
The Associated Press

TOPEKA - After Topeka voters preserved a narrow gay-rights ordinance last week, some activists saw a way to improve their admittedly slim chances of defeating a proposal to ban same-sex marriage in a statewide election April 5.

<snip>

Meanwhile, Phelps glories in his message, saying he's called to preach Biblical truths. He scoffs at clergy who say homosexuality is sinful but add that God still loves gays and lesbians.

"They're all going to Hell," he said. "They're worse than the fags. They're fag-enablers."

<snip>

And he won't water down his message, citing Isaiah 58:1, "Cry aloud, spare not, lift up thy voice like a trumpet and show my people their transgression."

More:
http://morningsun.net/stories/030705/reg_20050307005.shtml

[Ian David]

9. Extreme Prejudice

Published on Monday, March 7, 2005 by the Guardian/UK
Extreme Prejudice
Events in a Small Kansas Town Reflect the Close Links Between the Civil Rights Struggle and Gay Liberation
by Gary Younge


The flat plains and big skies of Kansas serve as a reassuring backdrop to America's emotional landscape. In the national mythology Kansas (the size of Austria; the population of Latvia) is not just any state but a cultural comfort blanket. Like motherhood, apple pie, little league and homecoming, it represents all that is steady, regular, wholesome and decent in America. The state song is Home on the Range. Kansas, writes Thomas Frank in What's the Matter With Kansas? is "where Dorothy wants to return where Superman grew up". When Frank's book came out in Britain its title had been translated to: What's the Matter with America? Kansas is the state of the nation.

In this mythic terrain Fred Phelps, of Topeka (pop 122,377), Kansas, fits in and stands out. He fits in because he is a homophobe who, like most of the country, including the Bush administration, uses the Bible as the source of his bigotry. He stands out because, unlike most of the country, he pursues his agenda with a vicious zeal and animus that not even the White House could match. When Mr Phelps attended the funeral of Matthew Shephard, a young man beaten to a pulp in a homophobic attack, or those of prominent HIV sufferers, he took his "God hates fags" picket signs with him.

Phelp's granddaughter, Jael, inherited his intolerance. "The proscribed punishment for homosexuality in the Bible is death," she told the New York Times last week. "They are worthy of death, and those people who condone that action are just as guilty." Last week, Jael Phelps stood for election against the city's first and only openly gay city councilwoman, Tiffany Muller, in a primary. She also lobbied to defeat a local ordinance making it illegal to discriminate against lesbians and gays who work for the city. She lost on both counts, coming a distant last in the primary while the ordnance was passed 53% to 47%.

The victory was principally due to local factors. With the Phelpses in the frame, the vote became as much a referendum about rejecting flagrant bigotry as embracing equality. A statewide vote calling for a constitutional ban on gay marriage in April is expected to pass easily; Muller came second but enters April's runoff as the underdog. But the process by which it came about illustrates a national trend that has striking parallels with the civil rights period of the 50s and 60s, when Topeka was in the national spotlight.

More:
http://www.commondreams.org/views05/0307-23.htm