Kansas church plans to protest Newton school play on gay victim

(Correction: Because of an editing error, a story in Tuesday's City & Region section on a planned protest at Newton South High School gave an incorrect date for the murder of Matthew Shepard. He was killed in 1998.)

Members of a Kansas church known for staging antigay protests nationwide plan to picket on Saturday at Newton South High School, where a play about a gay murder victim is being produced.

The Rev. Fred Phelps of the Westboro Baptist Church of Topeka said 12 to 15 members of his congregation plan to come in response to the school's production of ''The Laramie Project," which is scheduled to run Thursday through Saturday.

Written by New York playwright Moises Kaufman, the piece examines the murder in 1988 of Matthew Shepard.

The 21-year-old University of Wyoming student was beaten, tied to a fence on the outskirts of Laramie, Wyo., and left to die.

Shepard's attackers admitted to assaulting him because he was gay.

''It's a tacky bit of banal fag melodrama without any artistic or literary merit or redeeming value," said Phelps in a telephone interview yesterday. (He also protested at Shepard's funeral.) ''Its only purpose is to promote the homosexual lifestyle or at least sanitize it in the eyes of straight America."

A press release from the church echoed Phelps's standard picket slogan ''God hates fags," stating, ''God hates Newton South High and the school district."

School officials were notified yesterday of the pending protest via the Newton Police Department, which was informed of Phelps's announcement by the Boston Police Department Hate Crimes Unit.

''Superintendent Jeff Young has pledged his complete support [for the production] and will be attending," said Jeff Knoedler, the school's theater program director.

He added: ''Dr. Young is contacting the authorities in Lexington and Bedford, the sites of recent protests by the [Westboro Baptist Church], to see what kind of tactics the protesters used and to see what would work well to keep everybody safe while respecting the rights of protesters and possible counter-protesters."

The school's Gay-Straight Alliance met yesterday to plan their response.