Protesters made famous for picketing the funeral of Matthew Shepard with their “God Hates Fags” campaign are slated to make an appearance near the University May 6. A group from Pastor Fred Phelps’ Westboro Baptist Church in Topeka, Kan., said they will picket near the Main Street entrance to East Campus.
“There is a God, a standard, a day of judgment, a Hell and it’s not okay to be gay,” said Shirley Phelps-Roper, Phelps’ 47-year-old daughter, who is in charge of planning and executing the group’s demonstrations across the country. “If you live that life, and die in an unrepentant state, you’re going to Hell.”
Phelps-Roper said the group decided to protest at Duke in part because of material on the University’s website.
“Duke University receives tax dollars, and they’re using those tax dollars in part to fund the religion of the Sodomites,” Phelps-Roper said. “They’ve got all kinds of homosexual stuff going on at Duke University, it’s all over the website.”
The group plans to picket on Main Street near East Campus during the afternoon May 6 before protesting two weekend performances of the play The Laramie Project at the Durham School of the Arts. The play is based on interviews conducted in Laramie, Wyo., shortly after Shepard was murdered in an anti-gay hate crime. It includes a character who portrays Phelps.
The group also plans to protest at seven Durham churches, including St. Paul Lutheran Church, Aldersgate United Methodist Church, First Presbyterian Church, First Baptist Church, St. Luke’s Episcopal Church, Our Savior Lutheran Church and Immaculate Conception Catholic Church.
Phelps-Roper said a lawyer from their office sent a letter April 1 to Duke University Police Department Chief Clarence Birkhead notifying him of their plans to protest.
Birkhead and DUPD were not aware of the group’s intentions, said Leanora Minai, senior public relations specialist for DUPD. Any picketing or protesting directly on campus has to be approved by the University administration, she added.
“If it’s sanctioned it has to go through the University channels, in terms of getting sanctioned permission,” she said. “We need to know a little more but we’re going to monitor the situation... this is the first we’ve heard about it. Like any special event, we will do what is appropriate.”
When questioned about the group’s use of the term fag, Phelps-Roper said it was not offensive.
“They are not gay. So we’re not going to call them gay. Fag is really kind of eloquent Bible metaphor,” she said. “Natural wood faggots fuel nature’s fire, just like these Sodomites, or fags, fuel the wrath of God—they fuel the fires of Hell.”
Phelps-Roper said the acceptance of homosexuality is a major problem for young people.
“This filthy manner of life, if our nation makes it an innocent alternate lifestyle, we are a doomed nation,” she said. “Thank God for 9/11, thank God for the tsunami, thank God for [Hurricane] Ivan, thank God for [Hurricane] Charley.”
Groups under Phelps’ guidance have picketed at sites across the country, including other schools such as Brown University and Ohio State University, but they have also failed to show at other locations where they had planned protests.
Either way, AQUADuke President Brian West said his organization was going to coordinate a counter-protest with other campus and local groups to plan a “wide-range response.”
“I’ve already received a lot of e-mails both from ministers and the local community showing solidarity with the Gay Straight Alliance at DSA and here,” he said. “[The picketing] fosters a culture of hate and essentially I think that if students are uncomfortable at Duke it only makes it more uncomfortable for them.
I think that Rev. Phelps crosses the line in a lot of ways. It’s not just he’s expressing a political view, he’s actually in some ways making an implicit threat that not only do [lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people] not have a right to exist, essentially if they die that’s a divinely good thing.”
West added that the date of the scheduled protesting, during Friday of exam week, made it an “especially terrible time,” but added that any sort of response would still be strong.
“We will be there when he comes,” he said. “We’re going to try to avoid being, in general, very aggressive or sort of violent in our protesting. It’s more about showing solidarity, trying to express our viewpoint that hate is not okay.”
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