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Religion

Kansas church to picket area congregations

By WAVENEY ANN MOORE
Published December 16, 2005

ST. PETERSBURG - Local police have alerted several area churches that their congregations will be the target of a picketing campaign from members of a Topeka, Kan., church this weekend.

Westboro Baptist Church, which is led by the Rev. Fred Phelps, regularly pickets churches across the nation. Members also picket military funerals. The church preaches an anti-gay message and predicts that America's sins will lead to its downfall.

Shirley Phelps-Roper, Westboro's attorney and daughter of the pastor, said 25 of its roughly 100 members will picket St. Petersburg and Clearwater churches during services on Saturday and Sunday.

"The message to America is that you have sinned away your day of grace. America is doomed," Phelps-Roper said in a telephone interview.

Bill Proffitt, a spokesman for the St. Petersburg Police Department, said police were notified about the picketing.

"They basically sent a letter to the chief of police in St. Petersburg and (in) Clearwater saying that it was their intention to come this weekend and protest peacefully and lawfully," Proffitt said. "We called the churches as a courtesy to let them know."

"They are not looking for problems either," he said. "They just want to send their message. They have been upfront about it. We're not aware of any problems occuring in other places."

The congregations scheduled to be picketed in St. Petersburg are St. Peter's Episcopal Cathedral, the Cathedral of St. Jude the Apostle and St. Paul's Catholic, Northside Baptist and First United Methodist churches. The churches in Clearwater are Light of Christ Catholic, Episcopal Church of the Ascension, Calvary Baptist and the Church of Scientology.

[Last modified December 16, 2005, 00:53:08]