Reply #27: thank you,mdguss [View All]

The story you were speaking of


Vote in Topeka Today Hangs on Gay Rights and a Vitriolic Local Protester
By JODI WILGOREN

TOPEKA, Kan., Feb. 24 - Jael Phelps, 20, a nursing student, stood outside the City Council chamber here on a recent night holding a sign with a photograph of the councilwoman whom she hopes to unseat, Tiffany Muller, placed on a dog's body. The caption, "Mutt Muller," alluded to her family's view of homosexuals.

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The referendum, which would ban the Council from passing any ordinances specifically protecting gays for 10 years, would be the only one of its type in the nation, after Cincinnati voters in November repealed a similar measure that they passed in 1993.

The battle has become as much as anything a debate over Mr. Phelps, whose incessant daily pickets and hate-filled faxes have plagued Topeka for 14 years, yet whose opposition to the antidiscrimination ordinance is shared by many residents of this church-laden, Republican-leaning city of 125,000.

The Phelpses' tactics have turned some evangelical ministers and conservative businessmen into unlikely crusaders for gay rights, backing measures like the antidiscrimination ordinance, if only as an antidote to the family's message. And with an amendment to the State Constitution to ban same-sex marriage on the ballot in April, many other religious and civic leaders are trying mightily to stop the Phelpses from hijacking what they see as a signature issue.

As Ms. Muller and Miss Phelps go door to door in the district, talk about taxes and employment gives way to questions about sex and the Bible. Miss Phelps has been yelled off lawns when residents learned her surname, which appears on campaign fliers in only the finest print, and voters have told Ms. Muller's supporters that she would not win their votes if she ran against a pack of snakes.

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/03/01/national/01topeka.html
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