Westboro Baptist Church to Protest Funeral of 9-Year-Old Girl Murdered in Tucson Shooting; Hells Angels to the Rescue?
By James King, Mon., Jan. 10 2011 @ 2:22PM
Members of the controversial Westboro Baptist Church in Topeka, Kansas, announced today that they plan to protest the funeral of a 9-year-old girl murdered during Saturday's shooting rampage in Tucson.
In a press release, the group -- made infamous for holding protest rallies at other funerals, including that of Elizabeth Edwards, cancer victim and wife of former presidential candidate John Edwards -- says 9-year-old Christina Green "was killed for your rebellion when God sent the shooter to deal with idolatrous America."
We'll spare you the rest of the group's despicable rant, but anyone interested can read it at www.godhatesfags.com.
Christina was among six murdered in the attack at a Safeway grocery store Saturday morning, where Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords was holding a "Congress on Your Corner" event about 10 a.m. Saturday.
Recently elected to her school's student council, she had gone with a family friend to meet her congresswoman when Jared Loughner allegedly opened fire on the crowd, killing six and wounding several others -- including Giffords.
The young girl was born on September 11, 2001, which, her parents say, made her very patriotic for a kid.
When the WBC's held similar events in the past, the Hells Angels Motorcycle Club has rallied and peacefully prevented the group from getting close to funeral processions.
Christina's funeral is scheduled for 12:15 p.m. on Thursday at the Elizabeth Ann Seton Parish in Tucson. We called Lee Cole, president of the Hells Angels' Phoenix chapter, to see if he plans to assemble his troops to keep the WBC away from the funeral. He didn't immediately get back to us, but check back to Valley Fever later for an update.
http://www.comicsalliance.com/2011/01/10/heavy-ink-arizona-shooting-corcoran/
Jan 10th 2011 By: Laura Hudson
The tragic shooting in Tucson, Arizona over the weekend, which left Rep. Gabrielle Giffords in a coma and six others dead, has been universally condemned both by Democrats and Republicans, as you would expect in any civilized society where violence and assassination with semi-automatic weaponry are considered inappropriate responses to political differences. But while even Sarah Palin -- a forceful opponent of Giffords who once published an infographic targeting Giffords through gun sights -- was publicly calling for "peace and justice," at least one member of the retail comics community had a different message: "1 down, 534 to go."
The "1" is Gabrielle Giffords, and the "534" are the remaining members of Congress -- both Democrat and Republican -- who have not yet been shot in the head. The retailer who posted this was Travis Corcoran, the president of Heavy Ink, an online comic book retailer based in Arlington, Massachusetts.
In a post on his blog, Corcoran continued to comment on the shooting by taking the bold stance that while you are in the process of assassinating those 534 political leaders, it is important to aim very carefully so that you do not kill random people around them, as that would be wrong.
It is absolutely, absolutely unacceptable to shoot "indiscriminately".
Target only politicians and their staff, and leave regular citizens alone.
The response to early reports on the story by sites like Bleeding Cool was unsurprisingly outraged, with several notable creators publicly repudiating both Corcoran and Heavy Ink, including Gail Simone and Nick Spencer.
While Simone requested that Corcoran "grow a soul," Spencer specifically requested that Corcoran stop stocking his books in a series of tweets at the retailer detailed by Robot 6:
I'd like to ask that you... @tjic & your store @heavyink stop carrying my creator-owned work. I respect your right to an opinion, but am not personally comfortable doing business with someone who advocates violence against people they disagree with. I certainly have no power to speak for my publishers and employers, but as an individual creator, I hope you'll respect this request.
Free speech is an often difficult thing to defend when we are asked to extend that protection to ideas that are fundamentally repugnant to our values, an issue that many people are currently struggling with in regards to the Westboro Baptist Church. Perhaps not so coincidentally, the Westboro Baptist Church is now planning to picket the funerals of the people who died in the Tucson shooting, including the funeral of a 9-year-old girl.
Although in fairness, the Westboro Baptist Church only believes in celebrating "God's vengeance" -- such as the deaths of soldiers or the mass murder of politicians and civilians -- after the fact, but do not advocate future acts of violence, which actually puts them a step above Corcoran on the scale of personal irresponsibility. And if you ever reach a point in your life where you realize that the Westboro Baptist Church is taking a more sensitive and balanced view of a political issue than you are, it's probably time for some serious self-examination.
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