Phelps Family to Picket Gay Wedding in Hometown of Lt. Governor Kerry Healey

Press Release, KnowThyNeighbor.org | May 6, 2006

MANCHESTER-BY-THE-SEA, MA, May 6, 2006 -- The Topeka, Kansas-based extremist group, The Phelps Family of the Westboro Baptist Church, has announced that they intend to picket the wedding of Rev. Craig Collemer and Gary LaParl which is scheduled for 7:00 P.M. on Saturday, May 6th at the First Baptist Church, 221 Cabot Street in Beverly.

Phelps is a well known disruptive force who uses his First Amendment right of protest to voice hatred of gays and lesbians and is infamous for using inflammatory slogans like, "God Hates Fags." Various local groups plan to voice opposition to Phelps' presence.

KnowThyNeighbor.org, the Manchester-by-the-Sea-based citizen watchdog group which posted on their website the names and addresses of 143,000 people who signed a petition to end same-sex marriage rights, will have representatives present at the protest. Tom Lang, Director of KnowThyNeighbor.org, stated, "First and foremost this is an important day for the couple who will be marrying and it is extremely disrespectful that the Phelps group is here. However, Phelps and his actions are only the flowering of the tree that is growing regarding anti-gay, anti-family and anti-equality sentiment. Efforts like the currently proposed anti-gay marriage amendment which would clearly segregate and discriminate against couples like Reverend Collemer and Gary LaParl undeniably give nutrients to this tree."

Beverly is the hometown of: Lt. Governor Kerry Healey, who supports civil unions but opposes marriage equality for gays and lesbians; Darrell Crate, the Chairman of the GOP State Committee whose poltical director, Rob Willington, has called gays and lesbians, "the forces of evil,"; and, Tom Shields, the Director of The Massachusetts Family Institute, the organization spearheading the present campaign against marriage rights for gays and lesbians.

KnowThyNeighbor.org wants to know how these people feel about Phelps being in their hometown. Lang says, "At least Phelps is honest about his hatred, these others hide behind the hypocrisy of rhetoric and political maneuvers to express theirs."

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