Members of the Student Government Association at Virginia Tech are collaborating with members of the Blacksburg community to counteract a protest by the Westboro Baptist Church in downtown Blacksburg. The church has become controversial for running the site godhatesfags.com, among other things. Church members plan to conclude their protest in front of the Virginia Tech Hillel chapter at the Jewish Community Center in Blacksburg.

The independent Baptist church, founded by Fred Phelps in Topeka, Kansas, is widely considered to be a hate group, known for protesting at military funerals and for their use of strong anti-Semitic, anti-gay rhetoric, according to the Collegiate Times.

Church officials said that they were protesting over the shooting death of Virginia Tech senior Morgan Harrington, who went missing after attending a Metallica concert in October 2009 and whose body was found last month. Outside reports of the planned protest claimed that the church’s protests were related to the April 2007 shootings on the Tech campus, however church officials denied any such connection.

"We've got a sign that says 'God sent the killer,'" said Shirley Phelps-Roper, eldest daughter of church founder Fred Phelps.

The SGA voted to organize a counter-protest on the same day, and has proposed organizing a fundraiser to raise money to help counter the church's protest.  

“We’re tough-skinned people who won’t be affected by them,” said SGA president Brandon Carroll, of the Westboro Baptist Church in an interview with the Collegiate Times. Carroll said in the SGA meeting that he hoped to make it clear that the church was not welcome in Blacksburg.

While Tech’s LGBTA Center members are horrified that Westboro is coming to Blacksburg, the student group is not planning to officially join in the counter-protest.

“These people are awful, appalling, despicable. My method is to just ignore them. Me wasting energy on those people is not worth my time,” said LGBTA Center President Aimee Kanode in the Collegiate Times.

The titles of the fliers advertising the protest on the church’s website, godhatesfags.com, read, “WBC will picket these fag-infested, pervert–run West Virginia and Virginia Schools,” and “WBC will picket the Rebellious Brutes of Virginia Tech.”

Kanode said she told the LGBTA members who would be protesting to "be smart about it."

"Be safe and know what you can and cannot do," she said.


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