Fred Phelps came to town yesterday afternoon.

Fred Phelps

(For a quick primer on the infamous pastor you can check out his Wikipedia page here.)

Phelps was in town with members of his Westboro Baptist Church to protest at Hazelwood Central High School because of its Gay/Straight Alliance club.

It should be noted that Westboro Baptist church — much like the book burning Amazing Grace Baptist Church — is an independent Baptist church that bears little to no resemblance to a typical Baptist church and is not affiliated with any of the major Baptist associations or conventions.

But I don’t want to talk about Fred Phelps or his Topeka, Kansas based church.

I want to talk about the counter protest that took place with the intent of disarming Phelps’ nausea-inducing message of hate with a message of love.

Organized by Ed Reggi, the counter protest consisted of upwards of 60-70 people, about 10 times as many…

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Today, religious people of many denominations, including most Unitarian Universalists are celebrating National Coming Out Day.

In an online video, two ministers and a congregant take part in “Conversations from the Heart” — a project of the Human Rights Campaign Foundation for National Coming Out Day 2009.

Unitarian Universalists all over the country are participating in a Standing On The Side of Love campaign, and you can read more about that here.

In the meantime, we work and pray for marriage fairness for our gay family members, friends, co-workers, and associates.