How to build angel wings for the Westboro funeral counter-protest

Westboro Baptist Church has made headlines again. Infamous for tacky protests and hate-filled messages, Fred Phelps and the Westboro Baptist Church plan to picket the funerals of Tucson shooting victims, including 9-year-old Christina Green.

They have set up protests at Elizabeth Edwards’ funeral, and at the funerals of fallen U.S. military heroes. Their extreme message of hate is once again on display.

The actions of the Westboro Baptist Church and Fred Phelps run so contrary to the red letters of Christ’s gospel, and I am saddened by this new low, but resolved to speak even louder for Christ’s transformational love for us.

It is through that love that we are transformed and rescued. And in response to that vast and bottomless love, how then do we live? With hate for those unlike us? Or with that same vast and bottomless well of love?

Christ’s gospel is one of love, comfort, and empathy. Their is a response to the Westboro Baptist Church protest of the shooting victims organized by the Tucson community to shelter the Green’s and the other families from the protests. See the excerpt from CNN.com below for more details.

Tucson just isn’t that kind of town, says Christin Gilmer.

Gilmer
is referring to the actions of Westboro Baptist Church of Topeka,
Kansas, which has made its name protesting the funerals of people who
died of AIDS, gay people, soldiers and even Coretta Scott King.

But
when the church announced its intention to picket the funeral of a
9-year-old girl — one of six people who died Saturday during the
attempted assassination of U.S. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords — Gilmer and
others put their feet down.

Tucson is a “caring, loving, peaceful community,” according to Gilmer, who said two of the six people killed were friends.

“For
something like this to happen in Tucson was a really big shock to us
all,” she said. “Our nightmare happened when we saw Westboro Baptist
Church was going to picket the

They’re planning an “angel action” — with
8- by 10-foot “angel wings” worn by participants and used to shield
mourners from pickets. The actions were created by Coloradan Romaine
Patterson, who was shocked to find the Topeka church and its neon signs
outside the 1999 funeral of Matthew Shepherd, a young gay man beaten and
left on a fence to die in Laramie, Wyoming.

“We want to surround them, in a nonviolent way, to say that our community is united,” Gilmer said. “We’re a peaceful haven.

“You don’t mess with Tucson,” said Gilmer, 26, who described it as “a little dot of blue in a sea of red.”

But
political persuasions don’t matter, she said. Republicans, Democrats,
independents, right, left and center — they’ve all offered their
support. Forty-two people have signed up on a Facebook page called
“Build Angel Wings for the Westboro Funeral Counter-Protest and
Meeting,” and more than 4,500 have signed up on another page to “Show
Support for the Families of the Tucson Shooting Victims.”

“People,
businesses, they’re all donating material and money to build the angel
wings,” said Gilmer, who is helping organize the action. She added
they’re donating to a fund created to help pay for services for the
shooting victims.

If there is anyone on the ground in Tucson who is part of this effort,
please leave a comment with instructions and links for how others can
get extend their love in a physical, protective way to the victims of
the tragedy of the Tucson shootings.

Or you can make a donation to Christina Taylor Green Memorial Fund.