A group of Portland residents—many of whom were from local churches—made it their mission to shield another group of Christians from the anti-gay Westboro Baptist church this weekend. Saturday was the second full day of the Gay Christian Network Conference in Portland, which has drawn about 1,300 attendees. After Kansas’ Westboro Baptist Church announced that they would be protesting the event, about 100 locals decided they would form a “wall of love” to block the protestors and their hateful messages from those attending the GCN Conference.
Westboro is a small church—mostly made up of members of a single family—that is unaffiliated with any denomination. They regularly bring their hateful, anti-gay protest messages to high-profile events and funerals. Christian writer Tony Kriz, who was among those creating a human tunnel to shield conference-goers from the Westboro protestors, told The Oregonian, “I’m not comfortable with hate of any kind in my city. It has nothing to do with what you believe morally. Everybody needs to know they are loved” …
