An anti-gay church from Topeka, Kan., is planning a picket
Friday before the funeral of Master Sgt. Thomas D. Maholic, which
will be held at 3 p.m. at St. Bernard Elementary and Middle School
in Bradford.

Shirley Phelps-Roper, daughter of the church’s founder the Rev.
Fred Phelps, said Wednesday by telephone from Kansas that the
Westboro Baptist Church will have about 10 members in Bradford on
Friday.

“We’ve been on the streets on this nation for 15 years,” she
said, “begging every single day … the message being in the early
days if you continue to obey the Commandments of the Lord, you will
be blessed.

“This country has forgotten the God who raised her,” Roper said.
“It’s a nation based on idolatry.”

She said Americans worship idols such as the military and the
American flag instead of God, and don’t follow the rest of the
Commandments either.

“If you divorce and remarry, you are living in adultery,” she
said. “If you are not a fornicator by the age of 14, you are a
freak.”

And being a homosexual “is not OK. It is an abomination.”

Man shall not lie with man and woman shall not lie with woman,
she said, explaining that is against God’s teachings. The church’s
Web site reads that American troops are being killed for “fag sins.
America is now in God’s eternal crosshairs.”

However, American sins don’t stop there, Roper said.

“Thou shall not kill,” she continued. “Yet 23 out of every 100
pregnancies end in murder.”

Her church is trying to spread the message that God must be
obeyed, Roper said. And the wrath of God will be felt when He
isn’t.

“It’s a curse when your state is flooded,” she said, referring
to recent widespread flood damage in Pennsylvania. “It’s a curse
when your child comes home dead.

“Your state passed a law thinking you can shut up the servants
of the Living God,” Roper said. The Pennsylvania Legislature
recently passed a measure to ban protests at military funerals. “If
you think that will work, you should pass a law abolishing
Hell.

“What you got for your sorrows is a big, huge flood,” she
said.

Referring to what the Westboro Baptist Church does at its
pickets, Roper explained the aim is peaceful.

“Our job is to cause America to know her abomination,” she said.
“We stand peacefully on the public right-of-way and we put these
words in the air … with signs.

“Signs that say ‘God Hates Fags. God Hates Fag Enablers. Thank
God For Dead Soldiers. Thank God For 9/11,'” Roper said.

“When a nation becomes as filthy and perverse as this nation,
God unveils his arsenal,” Roper said. “His purpose is to destroy
this nation. These dead soldiers are just the beginning.”

Referring to American troops in Iraq, Roper said, “We’re sending
these brats that we’ve raised for the devil (with the belief that)
if you want something, you can take it. It’s a lie. This nation is
doomed. Marines are going in there slaughtering people like a bunch
of brute beasts.”

However, God isn’t on the side of the Iraqis, either, she
explained, saying God’s plan is “When I’m done with them, I’m going
to punish them too.”

“He’s using those dirt-poor Iraqis for making IEDs (Improvised
Explosive Devices) to blow American youth to smithereens. They are
being dispatched into hell faster than the Americans.”

Roper, and the 70-some members of the Westboro Baptist Church,
believe that they are carrying God’s message much the same way as
Noah and Jonah did in the Bible. And the message, Roper said, “will
be a thing that you love or a thing that you hate.”

“They got the message (that the Church brings), they hated the
message, they rejected the message,” she said. Roper compares
hating the church’s message to hating God.

“The hatred they have for their God comes out of their mouths,”
she said.

Noah’s speakings for God were rejected, he built an ark and was
saved from the biblical flood, Roper said. “You are either going to
listen to the word of God from his servants or you are doomed.”

She explained the church has gone all around the country
spreading its message, and has seen answers from above.

“The righteous shall rejoice when they see the judgment of God
executed,” she said, quoting Psalm 58:10. “That’s why we say thank
God for dead soldiers. We all deserve death and He didn’t kill us
all.”

The church will also stage a picket Friday at the National
Cemetery in Arlington, Va.