From kevyn@KSUVM.KSU.EDUMon Jun 26 19:13:35 1995 Date: Wed, 7 Jun 1995 21:38:41 -0500 (CDT) From: Kevyn Jacobs To: "Kansas Queer News [KQN]" Subject: Phelps Pickets Walt Disney World >From THE INDEPENDENT FLORIDA ALLIGATOR June 1, 1995 Front page headline story ====================================== TRAVELING ACTIVISTS PREACH HATE FOR GAYS by Emily R. Roach On the eve of Gainesville's Gay Pride Week, anti-gay activists on their way to protest this Saturday's Gay Day at Disney World stopped on West University Avenue and Southwest 34th Street Wednesday afternoon to protest the University of Florida's "strong homosexual presence." Holding signs bearing slogans such as "God Hates Fags," the 15 protesters - one third of them children - from Topeka, Kansas, smiled and waved at passing drivers, many of whom expressed their dissenting views by shouting profanities and giving obscene gestures. "Gainesville was on our list to get to sooner or later because we heard there was a strong homosexual presence on campus that the administration was encouraging," said Fred W. Phelps, the pastor of Topeka's Westboro Baptist Church who also ran for governor of Kansas in 1994. Several members of Phelps' congregation and family accompanied him on the trip. "I'm not really out here to accomplish anything except to get God's word out," said Phelps' 14-year-old granddaughter, Sara Phelps. "I'm not brainwashed. I read it out of the Bible myself." "Three words: Turn or burn. If we (Americans) don't turn away from this lifestyle, we are damned," said Charles Hockenbarger, 21, who said he pickets against gays seven days a week. Joseph Antonelli, president of the Gainesville Community Alliance, a gay professional and social group, says gays and lesbians are part of this city and will remain so. "If people find it necessary to protest then I feel sorry for them," Antonelli said. "By being so negative and profane as (these protesters) are, they are just looking to antagonize hatred. I suggest some inward thinking on their part." Pride '95, Gainesville's Gay Pride Week, runs June 4-11 and is the first community-wide opportunity for gays and lesbians to showcase their unity, strength, diversity and pride since the November election that repealed a local gay rights ordinance, said Tim Burke, chairman of Pride '95. Despite the "chilly climate," Pride '95 organizers said they felt in Gainesville after Alachua County voters chose to remove the words "sexual orientation" from the county's Human Rights Act last November, the Pride '95 committee expects the most extensive turnout in the city's history. "We want to use this opportunity to show those who do not know them - the face of gays and lesbians," Burke said. "(We have) pride to maintain esteem in ourselves and our community despite the very erroneous and negative stereotypes." (PHOTO caption: "Sara Phelps, 14 [holding a sign with a caricature of Bob Dole that says "Fag Dole"] and Joshua Phelps-Roper, 10 [holding a sign that says "Sodomy is No Family Value"], protest homosexuality on the corner of Southwest 14th St and University Avenue.") ====================================== >From the FLORIDA INDEPENDENT ALLIGATOR P. O. Box 14257, Gainesville, FL, 32604-2257 (E-MAIL: letters@freenet.ufl.edu) (Word limit on letters to the editor is 200; print run 30,000)