Date: Wed, 11 Jan 1995 09:19:25 -0600 (CST) From: Kevyn Jacobs Subject: Phelps in Boone, County, Missouri FROM THE COLUMBIA DAILY TRIBUNE (COLUMBIA MISSOURI) JANUARY 9, 1995 REPRINTED WITH PERMISSION =============================== "Preaching a message of hate" by Tom Walsh Tribune staff The Rev. Fred Phelps drove to Boone County from Kansas yesterday to deliver his message of hate. Snow drifted against the gravestones beside the abandoned Friendship Christian Church building west of Hallsville as Phelps and 15 of his followers -- mainly his children and grandchildren -- clambored out of two vans onto the windblown county road. Six sheriff's deputies looked on while the group walked past the dilapidated old church building to the adjoining cemetery, yelling anti-homosexual slogans and quoting from the Bible, looking for a funeral that had been scheduled for noon. This time, the members of the Westboro Baptist Church and Library of Topeka, Kan., were too late -- the targeted family held the service three hours early to avoid Phelps and his followers. After tromping around -- and on -- the fresh grave, Phelps preached briefly, a speech laced with obscenities and the word "fag." Phelps preaches hate. "You can't preach the Bible without preaching hate," he said. "There's more in the Bible about the hate of God than there is in the Bible about the love of God." Phelps and his church, composed mainly of relatives, including 11 of his 13 children, have carried on their "crusade" against homosexuals for 186 weeks. The best time to deliver his message, Phelps said, is at a funeral. "Funerals are a watershed time, people are thinking about heaven and hell, life and death, eternity," Phelps said. "When people are in that mode, I like to strike." Followers of Phelps have picketed the funerals of President Bill Clinton's mother Virginia Kelley, San Francisco journalist and AIDS activist Randy Shilts and Pedro Zamora, an AIDS victim who traveled the country telling his story. Phelps will picket anyone he associates with homosexuality and likes to target former members of the media, such as Hallsville native Henry Clay Gold, who worked 26 years as a writer for The Kansas City Star, a paper that has often editorialized against Phelps. Gold, a Hallsville native and fourth-generation Boone Countian, died last Monday. Phelps said that Gold "lied and skewed" his stories to promote homosexuality. Bill Tammeus called Phelps "an embarrassment to Kansas, an embarrassment to Topeka, an embarrassment to the Midwest and an embarrassment to the clergy." The Rev. Bill Ryan of the new Friendship Christian Church in Hallsville, who performed Gold's funeral service, denounced Phelps. "I am deeply saddened and angered that anyone would seek to further the pain of any family in a time of grief and loss," Ryan said. "I stand firmly against the message and example of Fred Phelps and cannot find Christ in anything he stands for." Gold's family chose not to comment on the protest. As they left the cemetery, Phelps and others walked through the shell of the old church, yelling profanities. Despite the lack of audience, they declared the protest a success, piled into two vans and headed back to Topeka. --30-- Anyone wanting to write a letter to the Tribune may write to: Columbia Daily Tribune, 4th and Walnut Sts., P.O. Box 798, Columbia, MO 65205.