Voices
PAUL BRANDEIS
RAUSHENBUSH
HUFFINGTON
01.20.13
Northwestern High
students and supporters
stage a counter-protest
to Westboro’s.
NICHOLAS KAMM/AFP/GETTY IMAGES
Thank
You,
Westboro
Baptist
Church!
NOTHING GETS PEOPLE more
riled up, on and offline, than a
small church comprised largely
of one family that calls itself the
Westboro Baptist Church.
I first heard of the church when
I saw The Laramie Project on stage
about 12 years ago. The theater
performace is a moving portrayal
of Laramie’s reaction to the murder of Matthew Shepard, a young
gay man who was beaten, tied to a
post and left to die in a field near
Laramie, Wyoming.
The Westboro church made an
appearance at the end of the show,
and in real life, to protest Shepard’s
funeral with signs declaring he was
going