Community Corner
Westboro Baptist Church Gay Marriage Protest Falls on Deaf Ears
Kansas-based church largely ignored by onlookers on Sunday morning
The Westboro Baptist Church, a group notorious for its anti-gay protests, was greeted by hundreds of curious onlookers during its last visit to Brooklyn in fall 2010.
However, public reaction was far more subdued this morning as they protested the first day of legal same-sex nuptials in New York City.
Standing across the street from the Brooklyn Marriage Bureau at Borough Hall as several gay and lesbian couples emerged from their wedding ceremonies, the Kansas-based church was almost entirely ignored as they voiced their disapproval.
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"New York thinks that they can, by vote, change the standard of God," said Rachel Phelps-Hockenbarger, spokesperson for the Westboro Baptist Church. "We're here to say that the standard of God has not changed."
While the church picketed, a handful of counter-protesters stood across from them and held comical signs like “God Hates the G Train.”
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“They’re well within their right to stand out here and protest, but we’re within ours to hold a calm, peaceful counter demonstration,” said Emily Ravich, a nanny who resides in Sunset Park.
The Westboro Baptist Church has received national attention for its hard-right religious position on homosexuality, including several protests where the group has picketed outside of the funerals of soldiers killed in Iraq. They claimed that the soliders' deaths were an act of God, the result of fighting to support a country that approves of homosexuality.
While the church holds hundreds of pickets across the country each year, their success rate in getting people to take their views to heart have been slim at best.
Phelps-Hockenbarger said that no New Yorkers have joined the church in the dozens of pickets they have held in NYC over the years, but that it isn't their goal to attract new members at the rallies.
“It’s not our job to try and convert the devil,” said Phelps-Hockenbarger. "Our job is to set the standard of God before your face so that when you stand before him on judgment day, you cannot say that you didn't know. You knew what it was and you rejected it."
Click on the video link for an exclusive interview with Phelps-Hockenbarger and tell us your thoughts in the comment section.
