Antigay pickets raise ire

Members of a Kansas church planning to demonstrate against homosexuality outside several churches in Lexington this morning will find people holding hands in solidarity with worshipers, local church officials said.

The action by local residents is one example of how people are dealing with pickets from the church, which plans to stage protests in Lexington, Bedford, Lowell and Dracut.

In response to the protesters' planned arrival this weekend, about 100 people who oppose the message from the Kansas church attended a training session in nonviolent demonstrations in Lexington last week, said the Reverend Judith Brain, pastor of Pilgrim United Church of Christ and a member of the Lexington Interfaith Clergy Association. Organizers decline to call it a counterprotest and say they will not engage the Kansas group directly.

''It's a silent witness. We are calling it a shield of loving kindness," Brain said. ''It's just a way of shielding the people who will be coming into the worship services from the kind of hate that gets conveyed by the Kansas group."

About 12 to 15 members of Westboro Baptist Church in Topeka, Kan., plan to picket outside five churches in Lexington this morning, at the Lexington High School graduation in Lowell this afternoon, and outside schools in Bedford, Lexington, and Dracut tomorrow morning.

Selectmen in Bedford have condemned the antigay message of the Kansas church members, while school officials in Bedford and Lexington have discouraged counterprotests, and the school superintendent in Dracut expects school business will continue as normal if there is picketing.

The Kansas church is an independent congregation with about 100 people who worship there Sundays, of whom about 60 participate in pickets across the nation, said Shirley Phelps-Roper, the church's lawyer and daughter of its leader, the Rev. Fred Phelps.

Church members have been picketing against homosexuality since 1991, including demonstrations against same-sex marriage in Cambridge, Boston, and Provincetown last year. Participants hold signs saying ''God Hates Fags."

Church members say that God loves people who are predestined for heaven, who show their righteousness by acting according to his will, but that God hates those predestined for hell, who show their iniquity by acting contrary to his will, including violating appeals in the Bible against gay sex.

''That doesn't mean that these people would never be saved," Phelps-Roper said in an interview. ''But the evidence, supported by Scriptures, is it doesn't look good for them."

Asked whether predestination means that picketing is useless, because people's souls have already been chosen for eternity, Phelps-Roper said the church's pickets might be the means God uses to convert some people and that it is the church's duty to preach God's word, whatever the effect.

''Part of this is so when people stand before God at the Day of Judgment, they can't say, 'We didn't know.' Because we warned them," Phelps-Roper said.

The Kansas church has targeted the Lexington churches in part for their approach to homosexuals, calling them in a press release ''dog kennels and leper colonies masquerading as churches."

The churches are St. Brigid Parish, a Roman Catholic church; Lexington United Methodist Church; Church of Our Redeemer, which is Episcopal; Hancock United Church of Christ; and First Baptist Church .

The Rev. Susan Morrison, pastor of Lexington United Methodist Church, said members of her church voted in 2000 to become a ''reconciling congregation," meaning church members ''celebrate people's gender identity, sexual orientation, race, and economic status, and open our doors to everyone."

Asked about the Kansas church's interpretation of Christianity, Morrison said, ''I just see that their intention is to condemn anything that is different than themselves. It appears that there's no room for any difference."

''It's not the same Gospel that I preach and teach," she said. ''The Gospel that I preach is one of forgiveness, loving one's enemy, everyone at the table."

The Bedford Board of Selectmen approved a statement Tuesday night calling the Kansas church's planned demonstration ''an insult to the values of this town and to all its citizens."

''With a united voice, we strongly condemn the language and underlying message of hate as a violation of human decency," the resolution said.

The Kansas church also plans to picket outside the Lexington High School graduation at Paul E. Tsongas Arena in Lowell this afternoon. In April some students at the high school sponsored a ''Day of Silence," to express solidarity with homosexuals and transgendered people.

School officials have decided to issue tickets for the graduation as a means of making sure that only those invited attend, to try to prevent disruptions.

But no organized opposition to the picketing is planned, said Michael Jones, principal of the high school. ''We're discouraging counterprotests. We don't think this group deserves that kind of attention," Jones said.

Tomorrow morning the Kansas group plans to picket outside John Glenn Middle School in Bedford, where a rainbow flag labeled ''gay pride" was hung in a hallway last year, and at Joseph Estabrook Elementary School, where David Parker, the father of a kindergartner, was arrested April 27 for trespassing after failing to get what he considered satisfactory assurances from school administrators that they would inform him and his wife before addressing homosexuality with students.

In separate interviews, Superintendent Bill Hurley of Lexington and Superintendent Maureen LaCroix of Bedford said they are discouraging counterprotests.

Later tomorrow morning the Kansas group plans to picket outside Englesby Intermediate School in Dracut, where a fifth-grade girl won an essay contest on women in history by writing about comedian Ellen DeGeneres, a lesbian.

Superintendent Elaine Espindle of Dracut said she expects school to continue as normal inside the Englesby, whatever is going on outside.

In Lexington, residents who have challenged the school system over homosexuality have distanced themselves from the Kansas group.

''I don't know anything about them, but they're certainly not representative of the people that live here in Lexington," said Gerry Wambolt, a spokesman for Lexington Parents for Respect, which has supported Parker. He said his group has no association with the Kansas church.

Neil Tassel, a lawyer who is representing Parker, said Parker wrote and called the Kansas church members asking them not to come to Lexington. ''He regards, I think correctly, that they are going to bring negative light on him because of their actions," said Tassel, of the Boston law firm Denner O'Malley.

Asked about the rejection of her church's message, Phelps-Roper said she was not surprised. ''If those guys were doing what they were supposed to be doing, they'd be doing what we're doing," she said. ''It's not their duty to reform the devil."