Tag Archives: protest

Phelps’s son says enough hate as local protest nears

A special report on last night’s Nightline was significant considering what’s scheduled to happen tomorrow morning locally.

Members of Westboro Baptist Church are currently planning to protest during the funeral of Marine Lance Cpl. Thomas E. Rivers, Jr. at Briarwood Presbyterian Church (map) tomorrow morning. Those interested in shielding mourners from the protesters will want to check out this Facebook event and share it with those that may be able to attend and help.

One person says that this pattern of hate needs to stop – the son of church founder Fred Phelps.

Nate Phelps spoke with the ABC News program last night about abuse at the hands of his father as a child, the reason why he left home nearly 30 years ago. He also spoke about his opinions on the case before the Supreme Court that will determine whether the fundamentalist church will be allowed to continue protesting at funerals.

We should have gotten the sign first

A little while back we wrote about the continuing pleas of the Forest Park-South Avondale to have the former Avonwood Cleaners demolished as it had become an eyesore in the community. Well, it looks like their prayers have been answered as the Birmingham News reports that the tear down has started.

It’ll hopefully be down by next week.

The contract to remove hazardous materials was originally on the January 2 Birmingham City Council agenda for approval (item 34).

Random Shots: Sending a message

Avonwood Cleaners

Photo credit: Chotty via Flickr

Some residents in Forest Park-South Avondale decided that they would ask Birmingham’s new mayor for a favor during the early days of his administration. The old Avonwood Cleaners building has sat vacant for years and has already suffered a fallen in roof and vandalism as mentioned in this story from August. This group simply wants the building taken down, though it the city did say in August that it may take as long as six months to clean up the property before demolition. They decided it was time to make sure that folks remembered that they wanted it down; so up went the sign on December 1…

Now if we could just get that old metal sign on the side of the building for our office…