PRAIRIE VILLAGE, Kan. – Protesters from Westboro Baptist Church in Topeka, Kansas, Fred Phelps’ church, went after high school students in Johnson County Thursday.
They took issue with a gay former prom king selected by the Shawnee Mission East student body.
“These children don’t have a clue,” said Shirley Phelps-Roper, Fred Phelps’ daughter. “They gave evidence to their cluelessness when they elected a prom-king-queen thing last year.”
Phelps’ protesters delivered an uncensored message on signs and in songs they sang standing on the corner of 75th and Mission Road, across the street from SME high school. They say students did an immoral act supporting a homosexual. They blame the students’ parents.
“They’ve been taught God is a big fat liar,” Phelps-Roper said. “It is okay to change your sex partners and change your spouses more often than you change your under garments!”
Across the street stood hundreds of students, parents, and gay rights activists. Some danced. Some held signs and screamed messages of love and peace. Others just shouted at Phelps’ protesters. None of the signs were more surprising that what SME senior Ian Huyett held. It said “Fred Phelps is a gay rights hero.”
“He’s a gay rights hero because he gives homophobia a bad name in this country,” Huyett said. “People look at those signs and say if that’s what homophobia is I don’t want to be a homophobe.”
The man in middle of the controversy, Matt Pope, the former prom king, agrees.
“I think it’s great,” Pope said. “Truthfully, I think the Phelps clan coming here and protesting is probably the best thing that could have happened to our community.”
For every minute Phelps’ protesters shouted students took donations for AIDS research at the University of Kansas Medical Center.
The students’ message back to the Phelps clan is also clear and uncensored.
“I think what we believe in is stronger,” Pope said.
SME students have a gay-straight alliance. The club’s numbers are growing. Officers say many students signed up in the wake of Thursday’s protest.
