Wednesday was a difficult day for The American Independent News Network, which is the larger entity that operates The Iowa Independent. Our chief executive and founder announced two of our sister sites would close and their content would be moved to The American Independent.
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The Iowa Senate will remain under the control of a slim 26-25 Democratic majority when it reconvenes in January 2012.
A church famous for protesting the funerals of American soldiers and preaching a message of anti-Semitism and homophobia will return to Iowa next week for three rallies.
Fred Phelps and members of the Westboro Baptist Church, a fundamentalist splinter group from Kansas that travels around the country staging hate-filled protests, will be in Waukee, Ames and Marshalltown on July 24.
In Waukee, the group will rally against the Iowa Jewish Historical Society, because, according to the group’s Web site, “history says Jews killed Jesus,” and “while we’re passing through, we thought we would help Iowa with a little history lesson.”
The Ames protest will take place near the campus of Iowa State University in order to tell students “God hates you.” It will focus on April’s Iowa Supreme Court decision legalizing same-sex marriage.
The group’s main protest will be outside the Marshalltown Community Theater, which is staging a production of “The Laramie Project,” a play that depicts the events of the death of Matthew Shepard, a gay student at the University of Wyoming who was murdered in an apparent hate crime.
Phelps and his church are monitored as a hate group by the Anti-Defamation League and Southern Poverty Law Center. The organization has 71 confirmed members, 60 of whom are related to Phelps. A representative of the group told the Marshalltown Times-Republican that 18 church members had signed up for the trip, however City Clerk Sheri Coughnhour told the paper the group had not yet filed for a permit to protest.
(The group’s schedule can be found on its Web site, which readers might find offensive or inappropriate.)
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