Westboro Baptist Church Cancels Protest At Amish Funerals

Every now and then I have to impose a personal news blackout. While this has the unfortunate affect of limiting my number of blog posts, it keeps me from becoming cynical, hardened by the daily list of bad things happening around the earth. As I come out of this latest blackout, I find I am immediately slapped in the face with two news stories. The first, which I will mention in another post, is the current GOP scandal in Congress. The second involves the threatened protest during the funerals of murdered Amish girls by members of the Westboro Baptist Church of Topeka, Ka. (Fortunately the protest has been cancelled. [see FoxNews.com])

This past Monday Charles Roberts walked into a one room Amish schoolhouse and killed five girls and wounded others, before killing himself. Today the Amish community here in Pennsylvania will bury their children according to their beliefs. The members of Westboro had planned to stage protests during today's funerals. The target of these protests was to be Pennsylvania Governor Ed Rendell, who has spoken out against this group in the past.

I'm not sure if the Amish vote. I am certain the victims, all children, did not vote for Rendell and it is a travesty to even think of using their funerals to publicize an agenda. Too often followers of Christ sit on the sidelines when others who claim to be Christians do things that run counter to the teachings of Christ. For the record let me state that Westboro is wrong and I hope other Christians stand up and let this group know that they are wrong.

Update: "The nuts laid the bait and now it has been taken hook, line and sinker." That is how Independent Conservative describes the deal between radio talk show host Mike Gallagher and Shirley Phelps-Roper. I totally agree. While this deal will keep the protestors away, it also sends an awful message to the vocal fringe looking for new ways to gain air time.