Provincetown braces for anti-gay church group
School's anti-bias program makes town a target among some conservative groups.

By DOUG FRASER
STAFF WRITER

PROVINCETOWN - Why would members of a Kansas church get on a plane and travel more than a thousand miles to picket in front of a Provincetown school?

One look at the Westboro Baptist Church's World Wide Web site gives the answer.

The web site includes photos of other protests showing members and their children holding signs reading "No Fags in Heaven" and "AIDS Cures Fags."

The site contains a page announcing the group's intention to protest in Provincetown and includes an article scanned from the Washington Times, headlined: "Provincetown preschoolers to learn ABC's of being gay."

As a result of that article the Kansas church, headed by the Rev. Fred Phelps, faxed a letter to the school announcing they would come to Provincetown sometime before Nov. 1 to protest Prov-ince-town's new Public Schools' Anti-Bias School and Community Project.

The project is still in the planning stages. It seeks to train teachers and students to handle issues of race, gender, religion and other differences.

Town officials are currently drafting a response to Phelps. It will affirm the group's right to protest, but disputes the facts of the article.

"What they won't find is a program where preschoolers are taught the ABCs of being gay," said Town Manager Keith Bergman. "What they will find is a community equipping itself with the tools to combat racism, sexism, classism, homophobia and all kinds of prejudice."

Jeannine Cristina, the town's Parent Teacher Association president, said the program will consist of teacher training the first year, with an eye to helping teachers identify bias. Teachers will also be encouraged to select texts that include minority perspectives.

Similar programs are in place in many other schools across the state. Bob Parlin, a history teacher at Newton South High School and a trainer with the state Department of Education's Safer Schools program, said he has given hundreds of training seminars on making schools safer by teaching tolerance.

"We encourage using texts that don't leave out whole social areas," he said. He estimated there were 150 Massachusetts high schools using a program similar to Provincetown's.

"That's what was so unusual about the reaction," he said. "The program was not all that different or unusual."

But the Times article was unusual enough to catch the eye of the Christian Broadcast Network, which sent a crew here this week to do a piece on the controversy.

CBN is part of televangelist and Christian Coalition supporter Pat Robertson's Family Channel and is carried on the MediaOne cable systems in most Cape towns.

CBN correspondent Randall Brooks quickly distanced her network from Phelps's group.

"There are a lot of people who do things in the name of Christ who are not Christ-like," Brooks said.

She said she read the Washington Times piece and decided to do interviews in Provincetown, either as part of a series on educational issues or as a stand-alone piece to be aired around the time of President Bill Clinton's national press conference on hate crimes Nov. 10.

Local human rights activist John Perry Ryan was not quite so sanguine about CBN's motives in coming to Provincetown.

"While I'm repulsed that Phelps and his lunatic fringe group is coming to town, I'm much more concerned about the Christian Coalition showing an interest," he said. "They are extremely organized and heavily funded. I think their whole purpose is to disassemble democratic pluralism and establish a theocracy."

Ryan said some townspeople were beginning to organize a campaign of their own.

This week the school also began to prepare for the possible arrival of protesters. Teachers held a meeting Tuesday to discuss the possibility of a protest and its implications on student safety.

Brooks said the reason she decided to do an article on Provincetown's anti-bias program was the controversy it had generated in the town.

Cristina, a lesbian who first articulated the need for such a program after she said her daughter encountered racism in her elementary school teacher, agreed the program was controversial in town. But she said that only indicated the need for education.

"I think there is a basic ignorance in town about what anti-bias means," she said. "I think there are wonderful people in town who understand, and then there are others who don't and deliberately don't want to understand."

CAPE COD TIMES, August 31, 1997

Letter: Learning starts early with anti-bias education

Though school starts Wednesday, adult education began Tuesday at the Provincetown Anti-bias School and Community Project forum.

The project received national attention from the Washington Times, which assumed in a front-page article, that the focus of the training would be on homosexuality. In reality the program includes all minorities and is no different from ones being adopted in schools nation-wide, said School Superintendent Susan Fleming.

But a reporter's misconception may have helped parents articulate fears that the schools would become forums in which sex would be taught.

However, Bob Parlin, a high school teacher from Newton who was a panelist at the forum, said teachers would never discuss sexual activities. They would discuss family structures besides the traditional two-parent family.

Fleming told about 50 parents and teachers at the forum that the diversity training is just in the discussion and planning phase for this year.

-- K.C.MYERS, Provincetown

Date: Sun, 21 Sep 1997 03:52:57 -0400 (EDT)
From: ac245@osfn.rhilinet.gov (Tina M. Wood)
Subject: Phelps to protest in Provincetown (fwd)

09-20-97 20:34
Cape Cod town braces for protest from Kansas church group
_________________________________________________________________

PROVINCETOWN, Mass. (AP) - Town officials are bristling at a letter from a fundamentalist Kansas church whose members say they intend to travel to Cape Cod to protest a school anti-bias program.

The Westboro Baptist Church in Topeka outlined the protest plans in a letter, faxed to the school system, announcing members would travel across the country to protest the town's new Public Schools' Anti-Bias School and Community Project, a system-wide educational project encouraging tolerance towards gays and lesbians.

The Rev. Fred Phelps, head of the 200-member church said he learned of the program from a Washington Times article headlined: "Provincetown preschoolers to learn ABC's of being gay."

An anti-homosexual activist, Phelps said approximately 25 church members are planning to travel by airplane to Provincetown in October.

"We will probably spend a day or two picketing with signs," said Phelps, 67. "Every time the gays have a big event, we go."

For the past several years, the church has spent more than $250,000 annually on travel expenses related to anti-gay protests around the country, Phelps said.

Although the church distributes inflammatory materials referring to gays as "sodomites" and "perverts" and members have been photographed at rallies holding signs reading"No Fags in Heaven" and "AIDS Cures Fags," Phelps said the church has peaceful intentions.

"I hope to be able to peacefully and safely preach the message of truth," said Phelps.

Town officials said they are drafting a response to Phelps which disputes the facts of the article, while affirming the church's right to protest.

"What they won't find is a program where preschoolers are taught the ABCs of being gay," Town Manager Keith Bergman told the Cape Cod Times.

"What they will find is a community equipping itself with the tools to combat racism, sexism, classism, homophobia and all kinds of prejudice."

Jeannine Cristina, the town's Parent Teacher Association president, said she believed the town would rally against anti-gay picketers.

"I know they are a very angry hateful group," said Cristina, a lesbian and mother of a young daughter.

"I think the town will show its solidarity and that we aren't interested in what they have to say," she said.

The anti-bias project, started in March, is intended to train teachers and students to handle issues of race, gender, religion and other differences, Cristina said.

Although Provincetown has attracted unwelcome attention since launching the project, nearly 150 schools across the state already have such programs in place.

Bob Parlin, a history teacher at Newton South High School and a trainer with the state Department of Education's Safer Schools program, said he has given hundreds of training seminars on making schools safer by teaching tolerance.

"That's what was so unusual about the reaction," Parlin said. "The (Provincetown) program is not that different or unusual."

Provincetown teachers and administrators held a meeting Tuesday to discuss the possibility of a protest and its implications for student safety.

The Washington Times article also caught the attention of the Christian Broadcast Network, which sent a crew to Provincetown last week to cover the controversy.

CBN is part of televangelist and Christian Coalition supporter Pat Robertson's Family Channel and is carried on the MediaOne cable systems in most Cape towns. CBN correspondent Randall Brooks distanced her network from Phelps' group.

"There are a lot of people who do things in the name of Christ who are not Christ-like," Brooks said.

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  ______   Tina M. Wood                     ac245@osfn.rhilinet.gov
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